


Megamorphs 5: Event Horizon

by JakeFromAminorphs



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:54:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 41
Words: 51,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29071344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JakeFromAminorphs/pseuds/JakeFromAminorphs
Summary: While the Yeerk war on Earth continues, a Controller gets his hands on a piece of morphing technology and goes rogue, and people around town start going missing! The Animorphs (and Ax!) have to track him down and stop him, but he’s pushing the boundaries of both Yeerk abilities and Andalite technology, becoming smarter and stronger all the time. The Animorphs aren’t alone in this fight! The Yeerks want to take the morphing technology from him, and even The Ellimist and Crayak want to stop him before he becomes powerful enough to challenge even them! Can they stop this new threat in time before the Earth and even the galaxy are damaged irreparably?
Comments: 2





	1. Prologue & Chapter 1: Ax

My name is Jake, and I’m kind of the leader of the team. The Animorphs and I have been through a lot together, and even though the fate of the world is at stake, I realize that reading over fifty books to understand this one can be a daunting task. Everything that has happened has impacted me personally, and it’s hard for even me to keep straight. The events in this book take place between Animorphs #48 and #49, and after all the other books in the Megamorphs series, and all of the Chronicles books except for the Ellimist Chronicles. Hopefully, this short summary will bring you up to speed.

* * *

It all started one night, when my friends (Marco, Cassie, Rachel, and Tobias) and I were walking home from the mall. We took a shortcut through a construction site, and an alien ship fell from the sky. Inside was Elfangor, an Andalite. The Andalites are a race from the stars who were in a war, trying to protect our planet from another alien race, the Yeerks. More on them in a minute.

Elfangor’s fleet had been defeated in a surprise attack just outside of our atmosphere. He told us that he was the last survivor, but he wouldn’t last long. In his dying moments, he gave us a piece of Andalite technology: a glowing blue cube that can bestow the power to morph into other species once their DNA has been acquired by touching them.

Another ship flew down to finish Elfangor off, and we had to run and hide. Out of the ship stepped Visser Three (who would later be promoted to Visser One), the leader of the Yeerk invasion of Earth. The Yeerks are a parasitic species that squeeze through your ear and mold themselves onto the surface of your brain. From there, they can read your thoughts and control you absolutely. You can’t move, speak, or even breathe unless the Yeerk decides to let you. People under the control of Yeerks are called Controllers, and they can be really hard to spot. Since they know everything about you, they can act like you and they know what you know. Anyone around you could be a Controller and you’d never have any idea.

We escaped from the Visser, acquired a variety of animal DNA, and waged guerrilla (and in Marco's case, gorilla) warfare against the Yeerks. We rescued Elfangor’s brother, Aximili (Ax for short), from where his ship had crashed deep in the ocean. We also joined forces with the Chee, a group of super-advanced, but nonviolent androids. Our team scored some small victories, but against such overwhelming odds, we were only slowing them down while we hoped that the Andalites would come and save us.

We soon found out that we were being watched by two powerful beings, engaged in a hands-off contest for the lives of everyone in the galaxy. These were Crayak, a giant burning eye bent on extinguishing all life in the galaxy, and The Ellimist, who was trying to help that same life thrive. Neither can interfere with us directly due to their agreement with the other, but the Ellimist has given us some hints before.

Now I think you know enough for us to tell you the story of how one rogue Yeerk managed to become powerful enough to threaten even those two god-like beings, and our fight to stop him.

# Chapter 1

My name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, and I am an Andalite. My human friends call me Ax, apparently because the mouth-sounds required to speak my name are too complicated, so shortening it works for them. These same friends call themselves the Animorphs, because they can morph into animals after absorbing their DNA; they cannot morph vegetables or other inanimate objects, though, as that would be extraordinarily ridiculous. Amazingly, this group may have learned to use the morphing power even better than Andalites themselves, but I do not dare let them know this opinion.

I have been an alien on the planet Earth for a few years now since my ship crashed, and have become very good at passing as a human in my own human morph. I can even walk on two legs without falling over! I was currently in human morph with Marco, another fellow Animorph, walking through the mall. Recently, Marco lost his home due to his cover being blown in the war against the Yeerks, so he has been residing in my scoop in the woods when he is not staying in the free Hork-Bajir valley. 

“Ax-man, two o’clock,” Marco whispered to me. “Look!”

“Marco, our focus right now is not about discussing your Earth time, we are on our way to Radio Shack,” I said. Then I added, “Shack. Sh. Ack. Ack.”

“No, man, there was a hot chick that walked right by us, and she was giving you the eye!” Marco explained, seeming frustrated for some unknown reason. 

“Two o’clock is a way to secretly describe direction,” he went on to explain.

“Time and direction are measured in the same units? I still have much to learn about humans,” I responded.

Marco sighed. “Whatever, but I’ll meet you at Radio Shack later,” he said. “I’m going to check this girl out, see if she wants to grab a bite at the food court. I need some normalcy in my life, man. I’ll meet up with you later. The store is just ahead.”

Marco peeled off, in pursuit of this “hot chick”, while I continued on my way. Our plan, which was mostly Marco’s plan, was to purchase a few pieces of hardware from Radio Shack in order to enhance my homemade satellite so that it could also obtain something called HBO. Marco refused to tell me why this HBO was so important, but we did not have any current missions, so I was available for this errand. I had become familiar with Radio Shack, as we have used items at the store for many missions over the course of the war.

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the Yeerk war. Yeerks are a parasite, much like snails or slugs on Earth, but with a terrible difference: they can enslave other sentient creatures by crawling inside their head, wrapping around the brain, and completely controlling them. We Andalites wish they had remained on their home planet, but due to some unfortunate past circumstances, they escaped with the technology to travel the universe, taking over entire species as they went. They have made Controllers of all the Hork-Bajir, Gedds, and Taxxons, while also gaining a few other hosts here and there, including the Andalite body of my mortal enemy: Visser One, formerly Visser Three. See, he—

“Um, excuse me, sir?” a man behind the counter asked. “I asked if you needed help, and you’ve been staring off into space for a good minute or two.”

I was startled. I was so focused on internally summarizing the Yeerk war to this point, I did not hear the man asking me for help. His nametag said he was called Gustav. Luckily, my experience watching human television provided me insight on how to respond.

“Wasssuuup!” I yelled, causing Gustav to jolt in surprise. “I am looking for radio parts!”

“Sir, this is Radio Shack,” Gustav replied, looking strangely wary. “Most of what we sell can be used in radios.”

“Great!” I continued, and raised up my hand. “High five!”

Gustav stared at me and then shambled away, not giving me a second glance. I lowered my hand, shrugged, and began looking through the nearest set of shelves. Shrugging consists of moving the shoulders up and then down, quickly, as a sign of being unsure.

I observed Gustav as another customer walked up to him. She had red hair and was wearing a black and white business suit.

“Excuse me,” said the woman. “Do you carry cell phones?”

“Yes, we do,” Gustav answered, smiling. “Allow me to show you.”

They walked over to a shelf full of cell phones. Gustav continued, “They’re top of the line, and fully guaranteed. Do you care to try one?”

She smiled and began to put a phone up to her ear, no doubt checking its audio quality even though the phone was definitively powered down. As if she could hear my thoughts (which humans cannot, I assure you, unless I purposely thought-speak to them), she put the phone back down and looked at the earpiece instead. 

“Is this an insect?” she suddenly demanded. “Is there some kind of slug in this phone?” 

Sure enough, she pulled the cover off the phone, and what looked like a shell-less snail was curled up inside. At this point I had wandered close enough to recognize immediately what was inside the phone: a Yeerk.

Gustav, whom I now knew was a Controller, apologized profusely with fake sincerity as the clearly disgusted woman stormed out of the store. He hustled past me with the phone and Yeerk in his hands, muttering to himself. I made myself busy, looking at a bundle of primitive computer wiring. The Yeerks were up to a new scheme, even if it was a foolish one: planting Yeerks in cell phones to enter unknowing customers’ ears! I had to tell the others!


	2. Tobias

Okay, let’s get this out of the way. My name is Tobias, and I’m a red-tailed hawk. I used to be a kid, but I stayed in hawk morph for more than two hours, and I got stuck as a hawk. The Andalites have a word for this kind of thing: _nothlit_. I was stuck as a hawk, but that wasn’t the end for me! The Ellimist gave me the ability to morph again, but my default state is still a red-tailed hawk. I got access to my human DNA, so I could become a human again, but if I stay human too long, I’ll become a _nothlit_ again. Human, but unable to morph. So, I’m a hawk, but at least I get to fly, right? That’s fun. I also get to live outside, not do normal kid stuff for more than two hours at a time, and get a reduced lifespan. That’s less fun.

That last part is what had my attention right now. I was in my meadow, hunting for food. There was a plump little squirrel eyeing an acorn on the ground. I could tell he was going to go for it, and when he did, I’d swoop down and grab him. I knew that I was about to shorten his lifespan, but was there anything I could do about my own? Morphing had gotten me into this situation, maybe morphing could get me out? How did it really work, with regards to aging? Does our DNA change as we get older? Are any of us on the team aging? When I look at my friends, the other Animorphs, I can’t really tell if they’re getting older. We’ve been in this war for a couple of years now, and it’s hard to be sure.

Sometimes, I perch in a tree outside the school, and watch my friends sit in class. I don’t have much else to do when we’re not on a mission, and my eyes do a great job seeing through the glare on the windows. My friends look like they fit in with the rest of their grade, but maybe they’re a little on the young-looking side. Again, I can’t really tell. Maybe I’m becoming disconnected with humanity, or maybe we don’t age while we’re in morph, so they look younger. If I could live most of my life in a different hawk morph instead of my default, aging hawk body, maybe I could keep my own age clock from running so much. 

It’d be worth a try. 

You know what? I wasn’t really that hungry. This squirrel was just going to be boredom-eating anyway. I flew to the next meadow over to pay a visit to the hawk that lives there. I didn’t like him, but I respected him enough that it wouldn’t bother me to spend a chunk of my life in morph as him. After a few minutes of searching, I found him perched in a tree, focusing on a snack that was running around on the ground. I could sneak up on him, I just had to stay quiet as I…

“TSEEEEER!” 

I screeched, of course I did. Can’t keep my dumb mouth shut when I’m diving. The hawk turned his head toward me, and started to fly away, but it was too late. POW! I slammed into him, full speed, and we both tumbled to the ground. Feathers went flying, and I got bit a couple of times, but I managed to wrap a talon around his leg, and focused on acquiring him. He relaxed and went limp as he fell into the acquiring trance, and I added his DNA to my internal roster. Marco would have had something clever to say, like this was an action movie, but I was just happy that I had only received the few wounds that I did. I kept my toe on him to keep the trance going, so he would stay calm while I stood up to fly away. I looked really dumb, hopping on one foot with my face in the dirt. 

I lifted off, and flapped my wings as fast and hard as I could, but as soon as I took off and looked back, he was right behind me. I had never really challenged him before since he was bigger and faster than me, but I figured I should be able to get away from him with my combination of hawk instinct and human creativity. 

I flew high up in the air, and then dove down to lose him in the trees. Things became a blur as I sped up, and then -

WHAM! I slammed into the side of a building. Once the stars cleared from my vision, I could see that it was only part of a building. 

Wait, I recognized this place! The construction site where we first met Elfangor! But how did I get here?

I SUPPOSE I COULD HAVE PLACED YOU A LITTLE MORE CAREFULLY, TOBIAS. MY APOLOGIES.

<Ellimist!> I shouted in surprise.

I’VE BROUGHT YOU HERE TO SEE SOMETHING, the Ellimist continued. PAY ATTENTION.

Dazed, still wounded, and laying on a partially-built wall, I looked around. Nothing was immediately obvious, just a bunch of equipment and rubble. Then, I heard some gravel crunch. There was someone else here! It was a tall man with red hair. I didn’t recognize him, but the Ellimist had told me to pay attention, so I took in all the detail about him that I could. He seemed bored and irritated, like he didn’t want to be there, which made his surprised gasp stand out all the more.

“Is that...Holy mackerel!” he gasped, “It’s part of the Escafil Device!” 

He silenced himself quickly, and looked around, a greedy look in his eyes. I guess he didn’t see me, but I immediately knew what the small blue shard that he picked up was. A corner of the morphing cube. We had taken it apart before, but we had always thought that the missing corner was a design choice, rather than an actual break. The cube must have gotten chipped when Elfangor’s ship was destroyed after he gave us morphing powers.

I took off to follow him, but I was suddenly back in the forest. No word of warning from the Ellimist, but there I was. I looked around, but I didn’t see the other hawk. He must have lost track of me when I got pulled to the construction site. 

I had to tell the others. I didn’t know if the shard could give morphing powers, since it was just a small part of the cube, but it was better to be safe than sorry. We didn’t need morph-capable Controllers running around! Since Ax and Marco live in the woods near me, I knew they had been planning to go to the mall. I took off for the mall at top speed.


	3. Marco

I’m Marco. Just Marco. Maybe ‘Marco, the funny one’. Kind of like Emily was just ‘Emily, the pretty one’, because I didn’t know her last name. But I did know that I was buying her some ice cream in the food court, and that was enough for me. I felt kind of bad leaving Ax to shop at Radio Shack alone. Oh well.

“Thanks, Marco,” Emily giggled as the cashier handed her a chocolate cone.

“No problem,” I replied, as we walked between some tables occupied by normal people having normal weekends. Wait, was it the weekend? Obviously, I needed some “normal” in my life.

“Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?” I asked, hoping I didn’t seem too eager. Believe it or not, I don’t have a lot of dating experience, particularly since entering this stupid war.

She answered, “I came to the mall to get…,” but whatever it was she came to the mall to get, I tuned her out. 

I was too busy looking at the food court’s Cinnabon shop. A man I recognized was walking up to the cashier, and the sight of this man made the blood in my veins go colder than the ice cream I had bought for Emily. See, we Animorphs aren’t the only ones with morphing power. Visser One, formerly Visser Three, has the same powers we do.

“Marco?”

It was him. Here! And I was all alone to deal with it!

“Marco?!”

I turned to look at whoever was calling my name. Oh, right, Emily. Everything had seemed to lose importance. What was Visser One doing at the mall?

“Look, um, Emily…” I began. I didn’t want to seem like I was blowing her off. I had just met this girl, and I didn’t want to make her feel bad. How do people normally deal with situations like this?

I had an idea.

“Marco, you seem very distracted suddenly,” Emily said. She paused, then added: “And a little...different looking in this light.”

I had decided to slightly, and I mean very slightly, morph a bit of gorilla. Just enough to be a little too hairy, a little too strange-looking for a girl like Emily to hang out with. It seemed to be working.

“Anyway,” Emily hurriedly continued. “I’m going to go meet, um, some friends on the other side of the mall. See you later!” And with that, she hurried off.

Knowing I definitely would not be seeing Emily again, I reluctantly turned my attention back to Visser One. I edged a little closer, and overheard him order a cinnamon bun. 

The cashier then promoted a new flavor. I almost laughed when I heard the offer: maple ginger. Visser One vehemently shook his head. I could understand that—the Yeerks had a bad experience with maple ginger oatmeal a while back, thanks to us. When the cashier asked for his payment, the visser gave the cashier a very serious look.

“What if I said, ‘I’d like a happy meal, with extra happy’?” he inquired.

The cashier had a blank look on his face, before replying, “I’d have to tell you that this is a Cinnabon, and not a McDonald’s?”

Visser One angrily handed some money to the cashier and turned away from the food stand with a gleeful look as he eyed his prize cinnamon bun in his hands. I kept up my slight gorilla morph to make it harder to recognize me as the kid who was supposed to be Dracon-fried in his family’s home a few weeks ago, a command given by the same evil being in front of me.

The visser took a quick look around, and then licked the cinnamon bun.

Suddenly, another man, one that I did not recognize, ran over. He was pretty tall, and had red hair. He looked a little bit like Conan O’Brien. Anyway, this guy looked overly excited, as if he were about to burst at any moment.

“Visser!” he cried in a hushed voice. “Visser, I’ve got to tell you something! You’re going to love this!” 

Instantly, Visser One’s face went from snack-induced happiness, to fury at the man interrupting him. He quickly turned to face the red-headed man, who was clearly a Controller, and grabbed him fiercely by the front of his shirt.

“Keep your voice down, NOW!” the visser hissed. “What do you think you’re doing, calling me that in public with all of these humans around? Have you completely lost your poor excuse of a mind?”

Red Hair looked taken aback. He stammered, “Sir, this is Zenguh Two-Zero-Zero-One, of the Sulp Niar pool, and I have, in my possession—”

“I don’t care what you have, you bumbling fool,” the visser snarled in a low voice. “I’ll instead tell you what I have. I have about ten minutes to enjoy one of the few things I actually like on this planet, and I have an idiot Yeerk about ten seconds away from being sentenced to death by Kandrona starvation for interrupting me!”

With that, Visser One turned away from Zenguh, and noisily began eating his cinnamon bun. People in the food court hadn’t been paying attention to the conversation before, but they certainly noticed the two of them now. Zenguh backed up, a look of hurt on his face that then turned to indignation, and walked away from the food court.

I had to decide which Controller to keep an eye on, and quickly. With all the attention that was on Visser One, I knew he wouldn’t be able to carry out any Yeerk business, so I quickly followed Zenguh out of the food court and up the escalator. He was headed straight for The Buckle, so I tagged along, fully demorphed. I figured this new guy wouldn’t know who I was, anyway. 

Pretending to look at shirts I would never buy, I kept a distant eye on the changing room he had entered. After ten minutes, I began to suspect he was no longer in there. We had experienced secret entrances to Yeerk pools before, and this could be a new one we had yet to track.

Rather than peek over the top of the changing room door, I went into the next changing stall, morphed fly, and kamikaze flew into Zenguh changing room. Even with my fly eyes, I could see that the Controller wasn’t in there. I demorphed and began to look for anything that would signify a pool entrance, when a pile of clothes caught my eye on the floor. I mean, it was a clothing store, but I was pretty sure these were the clothes the Controller was wearing.

 _What was going on here?_ I thought as I demorphed.

After a light bit of rummaging (for the sake of being a hero, of course), I found only one thing in his pocket: a quickly scribbled note, written out on a paper napkin. I’d take a look at it later. For now, I just wanted to get back to the others. Unless Zenguh had gone into the pool naked, something else had happened to him...her? What do I call a female Yeerk in a male body? I could probably ask Cassie about that, she’s more tuned into that sort of thing.

I headed out of the Buckle and heard some commotion. A quick glance down at the food court told me all I needed: somehow Visser One’s gross eating habits had escalated to a full-on fight, a food fight, in the middle of the mall. This was ridiculous! I still had to get back to Ax!


	4. Rachel

Hi, guys! I’m Rachel! I like to think of myself as the responsible one in the group. At least, that’s the most palatable way for me to phrase the fact that I’m the one my friends call when they need something difficult done. Anyway, I know that reading is for nerds and whatever, but I’ve read all 48 of our books so far, plus Megamorphs. They’re about me, and reading them lets me see how far I’ve come through this war. Let’s hope the Yeerks never get our names from the publisher. I realize that saying this makes me sound like a bit of a narcissist, but if you’ve been following along with the books, you really should know who I am. If you ask the other Animorphs about me, they’d call me Xena: Warrior Princess, or say that I’m someone who can walk through a tornado and come out of it with perfect hair and makeup.

I was at the mall with my best friend, Cassie, trying for the millionth time to get her out of her animal-poop-encrusted overalls, and into something that someone might want to be seen wearing in public. I hadn’t been able to talk her into any of the boutiques, so we were at Macy’s. That’s fine, I like a challenge. 

“What about these?” she asked, showing me a pair of red mom jeans. I looked around for a few seconds, and pointed out a woman wearing the same style but in blue. She was using a walker to get around the mall.

“Okay, point taken,” Cassie laughed “Maybe they’re not the sexiest jeans. What about these?”

I nearly fell over into a clearance rack when I saw that she had actually picked out something good. 

“Yes, Cassie!” I cried. “Go try those on right now.”

I hoped her newfound good taste didn’t waver before she bought them.

Suddenly, I heard screams from the Juniors department, near the entrance. 

“There’s a bird in here!” 

“Hide in the racks!”

“TSEEEER!”

I turned and saw Tobias, flying through the store. He saw me too.

<Rachel! Big news!> he said, as he flew into the fitting room. I jogged over to the men’s department, and almost instantly found something that would look amazing on him, on a great sale, and jogged it to the fitting room. 

He got out at the same time as Cassie. They both looked great in their new outfits. 

I’m amazing, I know. 

“So, Tobias, what’s the big news?”

“I think Ax and Marco are here too,” he replied. “I’d rather tell everyone as a group,” 

A salesman ran up to us and asked, “Did any of you see where that bird went?”

* * *

The three of us walked through the mall, keeping an eye out for the other boys, but as we got closer to the food court, it became obvious that we were headed in the right direction.

“Who let Ax loose in the food court again?” I asked. 

Cassie sighed and started going faster, just as Ax called out from behind us.

“Hey guys!” 

“Wait, if you’re here…” Tobias started.

“Then what’s going on over there?” I finished. 

We turned and saw a grown man climbing on the tables and eating food that had been left on the tables by frightened food court customers. People were throwing food to keep him away, but that only seemed to be encouraging him. A slice of Sbarro pizza flew through the air and hit me in the side of the face. 

“How do you do that, Rachel?” Cassie demanded. 

“Do what?” I asked.

I looked at my reflection in one of the mirrored mall columns, to find that my hair and makeup were flawless. And I had free pizza!

A group of four strong looking men rushed over to the man we all recognized as Visser One.

“Visser! This is too much attention!” we heard them say in hushed, yet urgent, tones. “Let’s go back to headquarters, and we’ll bring you some food there.”

Visser One tensed with rage, but then slumped, suddenly aware of himself, and hurried off with them. Ax watched him go, a sympathetic expression in his eyes. 

“Since we’re here…” Ax said. “Would it be okay if I picked up a cinnamon bun?”

“NO!” we all replied in unison.

Ax frowned, and looked like he noticed something. “Has anyone seen Marco?” 

We looked around, and right on cue, Marco ran up. 

“Guys! Guys!” he called. “Big news!”

There was a lot of that going around today. 

“Tobias said he had something important, too,” I said. “Can he go first?”

Marco said it was fine, so Tobias told us about how the Ellimist had shown him a tall, red-haired man at the construction site, and how the man now had a part of the morphing cube.

Marco’s eyes went wide, and then he told us how a man with the same description had come to the mall, told Visser One that he had something important, and had been yelled at for disturbing the visser’s cinnamon bun experience before storming off angrily. 

“Then I followed him to the changing rooms at The Buckle,” he finished. “Then he disappeared, leaving his clothes behind. I found this note in the pocket of his jeans.”

“That has to be the same guy!” I said. “Could the piece of the morphing cube have given him morphing powers? Maybe that’s how he disappeared?”

“We’ve got to check his clothes for the shard of the cube!” exclaimed Tobias. 

“Oh man! I got so excited about the note, I forgot to check the rest of the pockets! I’m on it!” Marco said, as he hurried off. “Meet back here!” he called over his shoulder. 

Ax had a somber look on his face. “If this Yeerk has part of the Escafil Device, he could give any number of Yeerks the ability to morph. We may never be safe again.”

“I had that thought too, Ax-man,” said Tobias. “Would just a piece of it be enough to give morphing powers?”

“I’m not sure,” Ax replied, looking down at the floor. “I was writing poetry for a female in my class at the academy the day we learned about how the Escafil Device works. The poetry was dreadful. I should not have bothered.”

We talked and watched the janitorial staff clean up the food court while we waited for Marco. 

“We probably should have had someone follow Visser One,” Ax remarked.

After a few minutes, Marco ran back. He shook his head. “I didn’t find anything else in his pockets.” 

“He must have hidden it somewhere or taken it with him,” I said, clenching my fists in frustration. “What are we gonna do?”

I looked around, and nobody looked like they knew where we should go from here.

Ax looked like he remembered something.

“The strangest thing just happened to me at Radio Shack. Ack,” he said. “I think it requires our attention.”


	5. Jake

I’m Jake. No last name needed. I’m sure at this point, you know why, and I don’t really want to get into it. No need to waste more time. Actually, at the moment I’m a bit annoyed in general. See, I was trying to get a hold of the team, and no one would answer the phone. No one! How am I supposed to lead a group against an alien invasion if people won’t answer their phones? Even my cousin Rachel, who I guess is pretty, didn’t answer the phone. Not that I cared more about her not answering than others, I just...anyway I’m annoyed.

I was flying in my peregrine falcon morph toward the mall. I figured, if the Animorphs wouldn’t answer their phones at home, then maybe I should look into getting us cell phones somehow. It would help with the whole potential eavesdropping problem with any Controllers living with us, like my brother Tom. So, I was heading to Radio Shack in the hopes that I could find a good deal on some phones. I had overheard Tom talking about buying a few, and whether he was a Controller or not (he was), I needed a good deal on phones. The combination of being teenagers and Animorphs left us pretty low on money.

I landed behind some Dumpsters on one side of the mall; always a symbol of our glamorous life as superheroes. I went through one of the many mall entrances, the one that directed shoppers past the food court. As I checked the mall directory, I couldn’t help but notice the food court was looking particularly...disgusting. Not many people were there, oddly, but it was a mess. I found Radio Shack on the map, and made my way to that side of the mall.

As I walked to the far corner of the mall, my mind wandered. Things had been heating up between us and the Yeerks recently. Marco losing his home and having to go completely off the grid was evidence of that. What was the end game? What did we need to do to go on the offensive, rather than always reacting defensively? 

There was a group in front of me walking side-by-side, taking up most of the aisle walkway. Not really paying attention, I did notice the attractiveness of the blonde girl, before my senses came back with a jolt and I realized I was tailing my friends, and had been checking out my cousin. 

Yikes.

“Guys! Wait up!” I called from behind them. Marco was the first to turn around.

“Hey, our Fearless Leader! Fancy seeing you here.”

“Prince Jake!” Ax said. “It is impeccable timing with which you have arrived. We do have a bit of a situation at the moment. Ment. T-t-t-t. It’s very difficult to get over how fun T sounds are.”

Tobias wiped some of Ax’s spit off his cheek, Marco rolled his eyes and suppressed a grin, and my adrenaline flared at Ax’s words.

A mission.

We made our way to Radio Shack as two separate groups of three; Ax, Rachel, and me in one group, and Tobias, Cassie, and Marco in the other group. We didn’t want to draw unwanted attention, as usual, so splitting up was best. Plus, having someone in morph in each group (Ax and Tobias as human), would allow us a way to thought-speak communicate between groups. 

It was a strategy I had picked up recently. 

Ax filled me in on the details of Radio Shack. I had to admit, while any mission could help us against the Yeerks, this cell phone ploy seemed particularly...ridiculous.

“Ax, on a scale of 1 to 10, how worried should we be about this?” I asked, as we stood outside the Radio Shack entrance. The other group was in the nearby family bathroom.

“What is this arbitrary scale?” Ax wondered aloud.

“A ‘10’ would mean we have a serious problem on our hands,” Rachel explained.

<Humans being unsuspectingly turned into Controllers is always a threat,> Ax said, still in human morph, but opening his thought-speak for all six of us to hear. <Yet I cannot help but feel this particular plan is not a very good one. It is actually an impressively bad plot. We should be able to take care of this easily.>

We heard Tobias thought-speak from behind the restroom door. <Cassie is asking if we should come back later or deal with this now, and Marco is complaining about being in a bathroom.>

<We could make a plan back at the food court,> Ax suggested to us.

“I’m not sure, Ax,” I answered. “It was kind of a mess when I came through that side of the mall.”

“Yeah, Jake, you missed out,” Rachel smiled. “Visser One was going nuts on a cinnamon bun and freaked a lot of people out.”

“Visser One?! Here?” I whispered loudly.

“You can hardly blame an Andalite for losing control to the amazing sensation of taste,” Ax said. “Particularly with Cinnabon, that always fills me with happiness. Appiness. Piness—”

Rachel dove to frantically cover Ax’s mouth, but her hand slipped.

“Penis!” Ax shouted, causing many heads to turn our direction.

<We heard that in here,> Tobias updated us. <Marco is now whining about wanting to be in that group, as it seems more “fun”.>

“Ax! I know mouth-sounds are fun, but chill out!” I quietly yelled, glaring directly at him.

“I’m sorry, Prince Jake,” he looked down at the floor. “It won’t happen again.”

“Fine,” I said. “Can you let the others know we are coming into their bathroom?”

Minutes later, six cockroaches scuttled out from under the still-locked door of the family bathroom. We had to protect our clothes, and Marco had said something about a note, as well. I wasn’t quite sure exactly what had happened at the food court, but I could only lead one mission at a time. The other details would have to wait.

<Let’s deal with Radio Shack,> I told the group as we ran into the store on high-powered roach legs. <Then you can tell me about whatever happened with Visser One.>

We motored under the sales clerk desk, into the back room. Vibrations from voices told us there was a small group of people in the storage closet. We had gotten pretty good at deciphering speech through a roach’s hearing.

“She SAW the Yeerk?” a gruff-sounding man asked.

“Yes,” came a meek answer. “She saw it and ran out of the store. I don’t think anyone would believe her, though.”

“Believe there was a bug in a phone?” Gruff-guy snapped. “Or that there was an alien in the phone?” 

“You’re lucky Visser One had to leave the mall abruptly,” a high-pitched woman’s voice said. “Very lucky. I suggest you shut this plan down.”

“The phone plan?” the meek-sounding guy answered. “Is that a pun? Are you making a joke?”

“What is the matter with you?!” Gruff-guy snarled. “This whole hide-Yeerks-in-cell-phones thing was YOUR dumb idea. Visser One never approved, so I suggest we just pretend the whole thing never happened. As of now, you’re being reassigned.”

The storage closet door opened and three sets of shoes marched out.

<Well guys, what do you think?> Tobias asked.

<I think there was plenty more room for cell phone puns,> Marco quickly answered.

<It sounds to me like this scheme died before it started,> Rachel said. <The Yeerks took care of it for us.>

<I agree,> I said. <Let’s get out of here. And tell me about what happened in the food court.>

I wasn’t paying attention. I had mentally moved on to the next task. But all of my attention was refocused when I saw a foot land directly on top of one of us—I couldn’t even tell who it was—squishing the roach body to the floor.


	6. Cassie

Back at the barn, we were gathered around like usual. Tobias keeping a lookout in the rafters, Marco sitting on the tractor, Jake sitting near Rachel on the hay, Ax near the horse stalls, and me standing up getting ready to read the Yeerk’s note to the group. 

“I sure am glad roaches are so hard to kill!” said Marco. “Though you’ve got to admit, I would have made great floor wax.”

The barn was noisy today. My dad had just received a shipment of chickens with severe depression, and was keeping them in crates in the barn when he wasn’t giving them therapy. Chickens are already loud birds, but they were pretty tense at the sight of Tobias, so the barn was particularly loud. Rather than shout the note’s potentially sensitive information over the noise, I started to morph. My arms began to grow thick fur, and my nose started lengthening. My legs shortened and thinned out, and as they did, I fell forward onto all fours. A long tail erupted from just above my butt, and finally, long teeth filled my mouth. The chickens went berserk.

Good ol’ wolf morph.

I no longer had hands to hold the note, so I pinned it against the dirt as I read.

<Dear Diary,> I began. 

Marco laughed. “Sorry, no, he sounds really cool.”

I started over. <Dear Diary, my name is Zenguh Two-Zero-Zero-One, and I currently inhabit a tall human named Dave.>

“Dave, huh?” Marco interrupted again. “Ugh, remember when we had to deal with a David before?” 

I looked over at Rachel, expectantly. She rubbed her stomach, stared into the distance, and said, “Yep!” 

I didn’t know what to make of that.

I continued, finding my place, and read out loud:

<...tall human named Dave. He tells people that he’s Conan O’Brien’s stunt double, but I don’t think I believe that Conan needs to do many stunts. I’m writing this because I have plans, big plans, and I need to keep track of them somewhere. Today, I was patrolling the old construction site where Visser One ate that Andalite, Elfangor, and I found something amazing. It’s a piece, just a shard really, of the device that the Andalites use to bestow morphing powers! And now it’s mine! I don’t think anyone knows I have it, although someone was near where I found it and shouted “Elvis” or something. I ran to find Visser One at the mall, and on my way, a bee stung me. I decided to test out the shard, so I acquired and turned into the bee! I flew for a while, and it was exhilarating! I morphed back to human, and found myself naked on 14th street. If it were my body, I’d be embarrassed, but it’s not, so I pretended I was The Terminator. I love that movie. I went back for my clothes, and started walking to the mall again. On the way, I decided to practice acquiring new DNA some more. The most convenient source was, of course, myself. I acquired my own Yeerk DNA through this host’s brain, since my body is always in contact. Now, I can morph into a bee or my own Yeerk body. When I got to the mall, I ran to tell Visser One about my discovery, and he yelled at me for interrupting his cinnamon bun, and that made me think. I don’t think he really appreciates me, and I don’t think I’m going to tell him about the shard after all. I know he got to where he is by taking a morph-capable Andalite body, so maybe I can get a big promotion too, thanks to this shard. Visser One just caused a huge scene at the mall, and if any of the Andalite bandits were there, they would definitely know that I’m a Controller, since I talked to him. I’m gonna go shake anyone who’s following me. Then I’m going to that convention downtown later today. Holy mackerel, I can’t wait!>

There was a palpable silence in the room. No one said anything for a few minutes.

<Well, now we know that the shard works,> Tobias sighed. 

“Now it’s extra important that the Yeerks don’t discover who we are, or we could have morph-capable Yeerk spies on us anywhere we go,” Rachel said.

“Rachel’s right,” said Jake. “And we need to move quickly. That Yeerk could look like anyone by now, so the sooner we find him, the easier it’ll be.”

I morphed back to my human form. “Do we have any ideas where he’d be?”

“He said he was going to a convention,” Marco reminded us. “On TV last night, I saw the worst commercial I’ve ever seen, and it was for a convention in town. I was too busy laughing at it to remember what it was for.”

“Then it’s probably at the convention center,” I said. 

“Thank God you’re here,” said Marco. I glared at him. 

We all morphed into our usual birds. Tobias as himself, a red-tailed hawk, Jake as a peregrine falcon, Marco as an osprey, Ax as a northern harrier, Rachel as America’s bird: the bald eagle. 

I morphed back to wolf. 

<I’m just gonna run there,> I explained. <I’m feeling a little tense, so a run would do me good.>

Jake sighed. <Fine.>

Normally, we fly apart to avoid suspicious eyes, but this was an emergency. We made a beeline for the convention center and got there as fast as we could. Twenty-five minutes later, I arrived at the convention center to hear screams and panicked voices. I hid in the bushes, but soon realized that the screams weren’t for me. People everywhere were pointing at the sky, and screaming things like “Those birds don’t fly together!” and “The northern harrier is a solitary bird, and furthermore, prefers open habitats, including marshes and grasslands, not a downtown urban environment!” 

A quick glance around revealed our mistake. A large banner was draped on the front of the convention center. “11th Annual Bird Watchers Convention”.

<Hide, you guys!> I thought-yelled, as I saw people start to grab their cameras.

<I can’t get to the roof in time!> Rachel yelled. <They’re going to get pictures of us!>

<I knew this would happen eventually!> Tobias also yelled.

<Who yells the word ‘furthermore’?> Marco asked.

I knew what I had to do. I howled, and then jumped into the crowd. The screams changed, but now all eyes were on me. There was a meat and cheese table near one of the doors, so I jumped on it, like any wolf would. If there were Controllers here, I’d have to be convincing enough as a wolf to throw off any suspicion that the birds were Andalite Bandits instead of regular birds. I ate all the meat, and then ran off into the woods behind the building.

<Thanks, Cassie!> said Jake. <Meet us out front. We’ll be demorphed in front of the main entrance.>

<Shall I meet by the main entrance in my natural state as well, Prince Jake?> Ax asked.

<No, Ax. Human, please,> Jake answered. I could imagine Jake pressing his wingtips to his temples.

I demorphed in the woods, and walked back to the entrance. I found the others, enjoying the secondary meat and cheese table just outside the entrance.

“Look at us,” said Marco. “Just six kids, wearing bicycle shorts and leotards at a birdwatching convention.”

“That’s my kind of Sunday!” Rachel chimed in. “Let’s catch this guy!”


	7. Marco

The convention was a mess. Everyone had gone pretty crazy from the strange bird-and-wolf sighting. All of us had some sort of evidence of the commotion Cassie had created on our clothes: dirt, food, various drinks. Well, all of us except Rachel, of course.

“Rachel, how, how, HOW are you clean?” I asked. All I got back was her supermodel, ridiculously great white smile.

Just then, Tobias came swooping down but missed the landing, sliding into a cheese tray.

<Tone down that smile, Rachel,> Tobias complained. <Also, birdwatchers? Really? It actually happened?>

“Sorry, Tobias. I’m as surprised as you are,” she apologized, the smile now gone. “Are you okay?”

<I’m fine,> Tobias answered, clearly flustered as he shook out his wings. <What’s the plan?>

“As awesome as it is to stand out here barefoot, maybe we should head inside,” I suggested, gesturing toward the doors of the convention center. 

Most of the bird watchers had moved inside, leaving us alone in a food tent. I dropped a piece of salami. Man, I was feeling lazy today. Rather than bend down to get it from under the table, I quickly morphed poodle, dove underneath to eat the meat, came back out, and demorphed.

<That is some next-level laziness, Marco. Well done,> Tobias remarked.

“Thanks!” I said brightly. “I practice a lot.”

<Little sidenote, does that salami you just ate as a poodle count as calories toward your human self?> Tobias asked me. <We used that to our advantage that one time with polar bears, but I feel like there’s a lot there to explore.>

I thought for a second. “Bird-boy, I really don’t know. I guess I’m not too hungry now. Seems like that’s something we should dwell on later, though.”

“I agree, let’s get inside,” Jake insisted. Then, giving Tobias a strange look, added: “You okay, man?”

<Oh, I’m fine,> Tobias said, in mid-morph to human. <Just been thinking over some morphing details recently. I have a lot of spare time, you know. A meadow isn’t the most exciting place.>

* * *

Once inside the building, we were less worried about being noticed. The main conference room was very large, and also very packed. While we looked ridiculous, bird watchers are kind of strange people on their own, so we didn’t stand out as much as we expected. There was a speaker already walking up to the podium on the front stage. The crowd quieted down as he raised his hands.

“Why do birds fly to warmer climates in the winter?” the man asked, possibly rhetorically. “Because it’s easier than walking!”

There was some scattered applause and chuckling among the crowd.

“Oh boy,” Rachel whispered. “And I thought Marco’s jokes were bad.”

“Well, this is a bit HAWKward,” the man continued, laughing at his own joke this time. “I didn’t mean to BIRDen you with such a terrible bird joke, but my wife says I’m a hoot, so I have no egrets.”

The crowd groaned. 

The speaker was pretty short and a bit heavier, with a thin black beard, thick black glasses, and a Chicago Blackhawks hat. As he droned on about birds, I glanced over and saw Cassie watching the crowd, staring pointedly at something. I moved closer to see what she was looking at.

“There’s a tall, red-headed man over there,” she said quietly, pointing over the crowd. “Tobias, Marco, is that our guy?”

“I think so,” I answered. Tobias agreed. The plan was to get even closer. But before we could make a move, the speech was suddenly over, and everything happened at once. The main speaker walked off stage. The audience began milling about. The red-head, or should I say Zenguh in Dave’s body, began meandering through the crowd, and we tried to keep up.

“Guys, let’s split up,” Jake said softly. “I’ll go with Ax and Marco to follow this Controller. We need a thought-speaker in this group anyway, and Tobias, you can be the one for Rachel and Cassie. You three, stay by the door in case we lose him and he tries to get away.”

Tobias, Rachel, and Cassie split off. I followed behind Ax, passing the speaker stage and watching intently up ahead. Looking ahead through the crowd, I saw Zenguh take a turn into the same hallway that the speaker had walked through.

“Jake, is Zenguh going after that speaker?” I wondered aloud.

“Maybe. Seems like it. Marco, keep following both of them!” Jake said. “In here, Ax,” With that, the two of them ducked into a small room.

I turned my attention back to the hallway, which went left at the end of the corridor. As we turned the corner, I could see that a single-person bathroom was the only remaining door. Did Zenguh have the morphing cube piece with him? Was it in that room? I waited outside the door for a few minutes, then ran back to the room with Jake and Ax, who were almost completely turned into flies at this point.

“Obligatory ‘eww, gross’,” I said. “Anyway, there’s nowhere else for them to go. I’m coming with you. It’s morphin’ time! Hey, how have we never said that before?”

Moments later, three flies were buzzing along the hallway. It took us a few tries to figure out the correct direction to go. Compound eyes were still something to get used to. We finally figured out where to go, but before we could get to the door, we saw the main speaker walking back the way he came. He was alone this time, without Zenguh following him. We hesitated, unsure what to do next. We watched the speaker walk kind of strangely down the empty hallway and back to the main conference room. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why his walk was so weird.

<Tobias, the speaker is headed back your way,> Jake said. <We are going to stay on this side looking for Zenguh. He’s gotta be in the room at the end of this hallway. He’s not following the speaker anymore.>

<On it,> came the answer from Tobias.

<Follow me,> I said to Jake and Ax, and three flies zipped and flipped to the single-person bathroom, easily squeezing underneath the door. We let Ax demorph first, as we were eager to see the situation inside the room and find our Controller, but did not want this Yeerk to see other humans capable of morphing. We did not expect Ax’s next statement.

<Prince Jake, Marco, there is no one here, only a pile of human clothing,> he said. <The Controller is nowhere to be found.>


	8. Cassie

We waited at the entrance to the hallway, waiting for the speaker as subtly as three kids in spandex could. We saw him walk by, and take a turn into another hallway. The posters we had seen in the convention hall said that he would be doing a workshop soon, but he was heading away from the hall in which the convention was set up, and toward the parking garage. Was he going to leave, right before his event? I also noticed his strange way of walking, taking really big steps and ducking under doorways. 

Suddenly, as if he’d forgotten something, he stopped, rubbed his hands together, and then walked back to the main hall. I quickly got a drink at the water fountain, with Rachel and Tobias leaning against the wall next to me, talking enthusiastically about hawks. He gave us a weird look, probably jealous of our great outfits, so we gave him some space before following him again. 

<We couldn’t find the red-haired man,> Ax’s voice sounded in our heads. <We found his clothes on the ground, but haven’t been able to find anything else.>

<No blood or scorch marks?> Tobias asked him.

<No evidence of a struggle. He seems to have just disappeared,> Ax replied.

“Oh no!” Rachel joked. “He’s been raptured!”

I chuckled, and Tobias laughed with no emotion on his face. 

“Are you guys talking about raptors?” asked a man in a bird-print Hawaiian shirt.

“Sorry, no,” Rachel responded, and we took off after the speaker.

Once we got closer to the event hall, he approached a brown-haired woman in a blue dress, who was flagging him down, an excited smile on her face. We couldn’t get close enough to hear what they were saying without arousing suspicion, so Rachel slipped away, and a couple of minutes later, a tiny shrew scampered across the carpet. She ran under a table near the two, tablecloth draped down to the floor.

<I’m in!> Rachel said. After listening for a bit, she went on. <They’re talking about some bird migrations...Now the variations between species of pigeons...Now, the woman’s saying she received her tickets for the convention earlier than she was expecting. Guys, this isn’t as fun as I thought it’d be.>

<Hang in there, Rachel,> said Tobias. <We’ve got to figure out how this speaker guy relates to all this.>

After another pause, Rachel said, <He’s saying he loves something. I missed what exactly, but he actually said “Holy mackerel, I love those”. Who says that? And why does that sound familiar?>

<The red-haired man used that phrase in the construction yard!> said Tobias.

“And in the note!” I whispered to Tobias. Things started to click into place. His peculiar phrasing, the strange way he walked…

“It’s Zenguh! The Yeerk!” I whispered urgently. “He talks that way, and he’s used to being in that much taller body, so he’s walking weird!”

Tobias relayed my discovery to Rachel. 

<Should I hitch a ride on his pants cuff?> she asked.

<Not yet. Keep listening, and we’ll let you know if he looks like he’s going to leave.>

“But what happened to the red-haired man, Dave, I mean?” I asked Tobias. “Ax says he wasn’t in the room. If there weren’t any blood or burn marks either, then I don’t think he got Dracon beamed.”

<I agree. We know he’s morph capable. He could have morphed and escaped once Zenguh got out of his head. The note said he could also be a bee?>

That made me worry. “Tobias, tell Ax to get the others to regroup with us, and keep their eyes out for a bee.”

“Will do,” he replied, then stared off into the distance for a second, thought-speaking. 

“Although…” I began. “Do we even need to find the red-haired man? If Zenguh’s got the bird guy now, then Dave’s not a Controller anymore. He’s probably getting as far away from here as he can. We just want the Yeerk that was in him.”

<Guys, I can’t stand listening to these two talk about birds much longer!> came Rachel’s exasperated thought-speak voice from under the table.

“Something feels off,” I said.

<You’re right,> Tobias agreed. <Why would a Yeerk abandon a morph-capable body?>

“Yeah!” I said, a bit louder than I meant to. I calmed myself down a bit, and continued. “Even if they can make more morph-capable Controllers, a freed morph-capable person could morph in front of a news reporter and prove that something was going on!”

<They couldn’t just play it off like they’re some crazy person seeing UFOs,> Tobias said. His voice was slow, like he was thinking hard, even though I couldn’t see it on his expressionless face.

<I’m done with this! These two are the worst!> said Rachel, and I saw a shrew dart out from under the table, and behind a convention booth curtain.

“Oh no,” I gasped, as Rachel walked up a few minutes later. “I think I figured it out.”

“I’ve only been able to hear Tobias’s side of the conversation,” she said. “What’s up?”

“The note said that Zenguh acquired a bee and his own Yeerk body through Dave,” I said. “What if he turned Dave into a Yeerk, and took over this new speaker guy’s body?”

“A Yeerk within a Yeerk within a host?” Rachel asked, eyes wide.

“That would explain the clothes on the floor earlier,” Tobias said, no longer needing to thought-speak, since we were all there. “So, we need to follow this bird enthusiast for a couple of hours, and see where the Yeerk drops out.”

“That won’t be hard,” Rachel said. “That lady kept going on about how great the bird section at The Gardens is. He seemed really into it. I bet he’s going there. Maybe he’s gonna get some cool bird morphs?”

“Hold on,” Tobias said, slowly, trying to piece it together. “So, he morphs himself into a Yeerk, and somehow takes over someone else’s body. I bet he’s delivering hosts to the Yeerk pool, one body at a time. We should follow him.”

“And he loses a set of clothes every time?” asked Rachel. “That’s definitely not how I’d do it. I’d at least carry a backpack to put them in. But we should follow him. We were lucky to even figure out that he changed bodies in the first place.”

I noticed the speaker turn to leave, and I nudged Rachel so she’d see too. 

“It was great talking with you!” the woman in blue called, as the speaker hustled away. We moved inconspicuously through the crowd and followed him out of the building. The man took his keys out of his pocket, got into a sky-blue Prius, and drove out of the parking lot. 

We got out of the open, and morphed into birds, being careful not to alarm any birdwatchers this time.


	9. Tobias

We took off one at a time, first Rachel, then Cassie, then me. As I started my climb into the air, I heard the door to the convention center open.

<Tobias, is that you?> It was Ax’s voice. 

I climbed in a circle to stay within hearing distance, but still make progress following the Yeerk. 

<It’s me,> I confirmed. <We’re following Zenguh; he just got in a sky-blue Prius.>

I filled Ax in about what we had discovered about Zenguh turning himself into a Yeerk and taking over the new guy.

I saw him nod, and then talk to the others

<Okay,> Ax responded. <Remain safe, _shorm_! Prince Jake requests that we regroup at the barn tonight.>

I got to the edge of thought-speak range and could no longer hear Ax. The large parking lot by the convention center was making a great thermal, so I rode it up as I looked for the girls. They were going slowly, following the car as it went with traffic. I decided that this would be a good time to do some experimenting. I concentrated on the hawk from the next meadow over, the one that I had acquired the day before. Lines traced my skin, just outlines at first, then became a series of weirdly realistic tattoos in a feather pattern. 

I’m kidding. I barely felt anything at all, but I felt bigger and stronger than normal. I caught up to Rachel and Cassie much faster than I was expecting. 

<Hey, Tobias! You made it!> said Rachel. She stared for a few seconds, and said, <Oh.>

She turned her head toward Cassie. <Hey, you’re not going to believe this. Some random hawk just joined us.>

<No, it’s me,> I said.

<Aaaaaa!> Rachel screamed, losing control and falling for a second. When she recovered, she continued, <Tobias, you look…different. Have you been working out?>

<I acquired the hawk from the meadow next to mine,> I explained. <I’ve got some theories to test out. Anyway, it was the easiest morph I’ve ever done! It took like 5 seconds! Watch!>

I morphed back and forth a few times, growing and shrinking. 

<I'm not even tired!>

<Wow, that’s kinda cool,> Rachel said. <It doesn’t really add much utility, does it? I guess you’re a little bigger?>

<I’m gonna see if spending time in morph as another hawk will postpone my aging. Hawks don’t live as long as I’d like,> I said. They seemed impressed.

We followed the car for another 15 minutes, until it became obvious where it was heading.

<He’s going to The Gardens,> said Rachel. The Gardens are a combination zoo and amusement park. Cassie’s mom takes care of the animals there.

We watched Zenguh park, buy a ticket, and enter The Gardens. We skipped the ticket booth, and landed inside the park, since it’s hard to carry ticket money as birds. We morphed into humans and watched him, again giving him plenty of space. He made his way to the aviary, no doubt as excited about birds as we thought. 

He approached the little island where the flamingos lived. They were just out in the open, with a little rope separating the birds from the guests. I had no idea how they got them to stay there. Cassie would know. 

“How do they get the flamingos to stay right here, Cassie?” Rachel asked, seemingly reading my mind.

“I’ve never treated a flamingo before, so I haven’t studied them much,” she replied. “Maybe they’re just really dumb? Or maybe they like it in there?”

We watched Zenguh, or so we hoped, from behind some ferns. He looked around to see if anyone was watching. Deciding that the coast was clear, he stepped over the rope and approached one of the pinkest flamingos. The bird didn’t even move as he reached out and grabbed it, which made me think Cassie was right about their intelligence. We hadn’t seen the bird be anything but calm, so the acquiring trance wasn’t very obvious. It just looked like a crazy man had jumped the fence to pet some flamingos.

“Hang on,” said Cassie. “That’s not Dave’s body. Dave is still inside this guy as a Yeerk. If he’s acquiring morphs, it means that Zenguh has given this new body morph capability. He must have the shard of the cube on him.”

“Also, a flamingo isn’t really a battle morph,” I said. “If he’s delivering morph-capable bodies to the pool, he only has less than two hours to get there, and spending the time and money to come here and acquire a morph like a flamingo doesn’t make sense.”

“Getting a flamingo morph doesn’t make sense at all, unless he’s just a big fan of flamingos. You can’t even fly around without people noticing you,” Rachel said. “Maybe it’s just morphing practice that won’t fight back.”

Zenguh had exited the flamingo area, and continued walking toward the part of the aviary that was netted in. He entered and walked down the path. After giving him some space, we entered as well. 

“It must be close to two hours since he took over bird guy,” Cassie said.

She was right. The sun had moved significantly since we had entered the convention center earlier this afternoon.

“Hey,” I said, looking to pass some time while we were waiting. “We’ve been calling Zenguh a ‘he’, but he’s taken over someone else’s body now. If he takes over a woman, do we call him a ‘she’?”

Cassie thought for a bit, and said, “I talked to Mr. Tidwell, from the Yeerk Peace Movement, and he says that Yeerks don’t really have genders. They’re usually referred to by the gender of the host they inhabit. Although, if he keeps getting new people, it could get confusing fast.”

“How about we just say ‘him’, then? Since the red-haired guy was a man,” Rachel asked. That seemed reasonable to us.

We could see him, but he was far enough away that we couldn’t tell what bird he was looking at. He appeared to be trying to figure out how to get into the enclosure, but wasn’t looking successful. Appearing flustered, he took off down the path, walking more quickly.

“I think he’s looking for the employee entrance to the behind-the-scenes area,” Cassie said. There’s one coming up.”

Just as Cassie had predicted, he found the door, checked to see if anyone was watching, and tried to open it. It was locked. He looked around again, perked up like he saw someone, and started walking back down the path, toward us.

Cassie’s head jerked, and she looked back the way we had come. 

“Guys, my mom’s over there!” she cried. “I just heard her giving someone directions. We’ve got to hide! I can’t let her see me here wearing this!”

“Really? This is where the line is drawn?” asked Rachel, gesturing at Cassie’s morphing suit. “Is there not enough goose poop on it?”

“Very funny,” Cassie said, exasperated. “We can’t go further up the path, or the bird guy will see us, and we can’t go back the way we came because my mom’s coming this way. We’ve got to morph.”

She was right, the man was walking down the path, heading for Cassie’s mom, and we were right in the middle. We left the path and dove behind some landscaping that was too small to hide behind from anyone close by. We all started to morph. I watched Rachel, and the whole world grew around us, as we shrunk down to the size of birds. Rachel went seagull, I went hawk, and Cassie…

Cassie trotted out onto the path, four-legged and covered in fur.

<You can’t be serious, Cassie,> I groaned.

“Oh no! Angela!” I heard Cassie’s mom’s voice. “What are you doing out of your enclosure? The other wolves are going to miss you!” 

As her mom led her across the zoo, Cassie called to us, <I’ll catch up with you!>

<Cassie’s family is insane.,> Rachel said. I agreed.

I turned back to the birdwatcher man, to see him now running off the other way. He must not have wanted to go near a loose wolf. That made sense. We followed in the air. 

He started walking again and approached a zookeeper with a clipboard. He clapped a hand onto the zookeeper’s shoulders, with his thumb touching the back of her neck. They walked with an unnatural calm, to an employees-only entrance. They went in, and walked ahead more quickly. 

We swooped in the doors at the last second, before they closed. We landed quietly, and saw that they had entered a veterinary exam room with a big glass window. As we watched, he laid the zookeeper down on the exam table, Zenguh’s hand never breaking contact with her neck. Then, Zenguh’s body started to shrink and turn a gross yellow-brown color. 

<He’s turning into a Yeerk!> Rachel said, disgusted and amazed at the same time.

She was right. As he shrank, his clothes fell off of him and onto the floor. He leaned his face into her ear, and once he was fully Yeerk, he slithered in. The zookeeper, now a Controller, stood up and went through the birdwatcher’s pockets. He removed a small blue item and held it in his palm for a few seconds, then put it away. He went through the birdwatcher’s pockets again, and grabbed his keys and wallet.

He left through another door in the exam room and out of sight. We frantically morphed human, unable to work doorknobs until we had fingers. Once we finally got through, we searched the entire employees-only area, but it was too late; there was no trace of the zookeeper. I looked through the pockets of the birdwatcher’s clothes, but wasn’t lucky enough to find another note. 

We walked to the wolf enclosure to meet back up with Cassie. We had a lot to talk about.


	10. Jake

<Jake says to meet at the barn tonight,> I heard Ax thought-speak to Tobias, Rachel, and Cassie as they flew away from the convention center, following this apparently rogue Controller across town.

After realizing the bathroom was empty, Ax, Marco, and I had worked our way back through the conference room and out the entrance doors, only to see the rest of our group in the distance, using bird morphs to track our Yeerk.

“Ax, I don’t like having a morph-capable Yeerk on the loose,” I said. “And the way Tobias described his possible plans...this is getting pretty serious pretty quickly.”

“Yes, Prince Jake,” Ax replied. “I have not heard of the morphing power being used in this way. Andalites have not explored it to this extent. On my home world, for example, warriors who get injured in battle do not use morphing to heal injuries. They just go on with a missing eyestalk, or gashed flank. It is a sign of honor.”

“What?” Marco asked. “I noticed that when we dealt with the Leeran planet, but didn’t connect that point. Isn’t that kind of ridiculous?”

“Morphing is new,” Ax answered defensively. “Everyone has their own ways of exploring how to utilize the technology.”

“Is not using it really a ‘way of exploring’?” Marco continued, sounding exasperated. “Let’s summarize, here. This Yeerk has a piece of morphing technology. That’s bad. He was controlling a guy named Dave, and forced him to morph into a duplicate Yeerk. That’s…confusing. Then he used his new Yeerk body to take over another person. Is he going to keep doing this? What happens to the…”

Marco’s eyes widened.

“He’s trapping humans as _nothlit_ Yeerks,” he said, looking visibly shaken.

“This is a disgusting use of our technology,” Ax agreed, sounding outraged. “Marco’s right, each human this Yeerk takes is being trapped in a continuing chain of Controllers.”

“Wouldn’t he need to visit the Yeerk pool at some point?” I asked. “Doesn’t he still need Kandrona?”

“Well,” Marco said slowly as he thought through this point. “When we morph, we aren’t immediately starving, outside of some animal instincts or whatever. By the time his newest Yeerk morph gets hungry for Kandrona, his host has already turned into a Yeerk, resetting the process, and…”

Marco trailed off.

“This is rough, man,” I said. “I’m not sure what even happens to the Yeerk that controls each body that is turning into another Yeerk. When I was a Controller, so long ago, and I turned into a bug, the Yeerk didn’t explode out of my head. But when we were sharks that tracking device in our heads was excruciating when we got small. What gives?”

”Perhaps we do not know how that aspect works, other than the fact that the Yeerk maintains control and is okay,” Ax said. “Okay. Okay. Kay, kayyyyyy. 

“Ax,” Marco warned.

“Ah, yes, thank you, Marco,” Ax continued. “If the Yeerk’s mass goes into Z-space as well during a morph, perhaps Kandrona is not necessary to keep it alive. I am not an Andalite scientist, so I can only speculate. Ate.”

“Can you image the giant hunk of every-growing morph excess that’s being pushed into Z-space?” I wondered aloud.

The three of us stared at each other in silence.

“Prince Jake, perhaps we need more assistance with this matter,” Ax said after a moment. “Might I suggest the Chee?”

“Great call,” I answered. “Marco? Think you can go track down Erek for me?”

“Sure thing, Jake,” Marco replied. “It’d be nice to hang out with my dad, if he’s there.”

We hid in a space behind the convention center, and soon we were three seagulls in the air, hoping this morph was less obvious to the birdwatching convention. Marco peeled off, and soon it was just Ax and I, headed toward Cassie’s barn. 

<So, Ax, this Controller is forcing humans to go Yeerk and get trapped,> I continued. <And then he’s forcing each upcoming host to acquire his Yeerk self? You can acquire _nothlits_?>

<Yes,> Ax answered. <Once a morpher is trapped, they really are that animal, as far as DNA is considered.>

<Wild,> I said, and we continued on, flapping in silence.

Suddenly, just ahead of us and at our level in the sky, was a small figure. From far away it looked like another bird.

<Heads up, Ax,> I warned. <These seagull morphs aren’t really good at fighting.>

As we got closer, the shape came more into view. It wasn’t a bird at all. It was hard to explain, but I was looking at the Drode, and he was working his way directly out of the fabric of the sky as easily as if he had been untangling himself from some bedsheets. Half of his body was still concealed within blue as he squeezed out of the sky itself.

<Ax, we’ve got trouble,> I said. I looked over to him. Ax was frozen in mid-air, wings up and ready to power his bird body another few feet. I looked back at the Drode. He was smiling his green-rimmed smile.

“Hello, Jake the Yeerk-Killer,” he grinned. “Did you miss me?”

And suddenly, we were no longer in the sky. I was a bit nervous. I wished I at least had Rachel with me. For backup, that is.

“It’s been too long, Jakey-boy,” the Drode drawled. “Tell me, do you ever plan on winning this war? Or do you just want to play soldier forever because you can’t do anything else worthwhile?”

I ignored the Drode’s words, but could not ignore the figure looming behind him.

It stared at me with a single, large, fiery eye.

Crayak.

“What do you want, Crayak?” I asked, sounding braver than I felt. I realized in the vast emptiness we were in, I had been demorphed without realizing it.

“Me? I don’t want anything, Jake,” he answered, with a hint of laughter. “You know I cannot interfere, just like that fool Ellimist.”

“Little Jake, did we interrupt your quest?” the Drode mocked. 

“Well, we are kind of in the middle—” I began.

“I KNOW,” Crayak boomed, his eye glowing brightly.

“Jake, don’t you think we keep tabs on every new being that tries to become an all-powerful god?” asked the Drode, dropping the sarcastic act. “This actually happens far too often. It’s a big universe out there; we are still trying to figure out who interfered with you a few weeks ago, showing you a Yeerk-filled Earth future timeline, not that it is really your concern.

He brought back his ugly personality and whined, “Remember that, Jakey? Did you think it was a bad dream?”

“Enough,” Crayak said to the Drode, continuing to stare at me. “I have grown tired of you so-called Animorphs, but the Drode is correct. We don’t need another creature accumulating multiple minds, running amok with power he cannot control and should not possess.”

My mind was reeling. Help from Crayak? No way.

“I want you dead, Jake,” Crayak said bluntly. “But I want this Yeerk, this Zenguh, dead even more. I’ve indirectly tipped off the Yeerks as to this situation. So, you may get a little bit of help. Now, if you destroy each other in the process...”

I swear somehow the single eye was smiling.

“What’s that stupid human phrase again?” the Drode piped up. “‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend?’ Good luck!” 

And just like that, I was back in the sky, flapping like mad with Ax toward the barn.


	11. Rachel

It was five days later, a Thursday. I was still beating myself up about letting Zenguh get away at the zoo, and it was making it really tough to listen in biology class. The lack of sleep, also from beating myself up, wasn’t helping either. 

At our meeting at the barn the other day, I had told the group that Zenguh got away because I didn’t think to be in a morph that had fingers. Nobody seemed to blame me, but I was still thinking about it a lot. 

Marco had gone to find the Chee. They hadn’t heard anything yet, but they were keeping an eye out for us. 

Nobody had any leads on this guy, so we’d been a little on edge since then. Every person he entered was getting trapped forever as a Yeerk that wasn’t even in control of its own actions. We had to stop this guy.

“Hey Rachel, do you think Brad likes me?” I was shaken out of my thoughts by a girl I didn’t really know. Linda, Laura, Lorax...L-something. Oh no, I don’t think I know who Brad is either. Saving the world was really taking a toll on my social life.

“I don’t know who that is,” I replied. 

“Oh Rachel, you’re so funny!” she said. I was really praying for the bell. “Can you ask him for me?”

“Leave it to me,” I said. After a second, I decided to wink at her. It didn’t feel like a convincing human interaction. Maybe I was hanging around Tobias too much.

I scribbled on a piece of notebook paper. ‘Hey Brad, I like you. Love, Lorax.’

Is this a thing that girls really do? Oh well.

“Hey Brad!” I pretended to sneeze, then looked around innocently and saw one of the boys perk up. Target acquired.

The bell rang, and I slipped the paper into Brad’s bag as everyone left the classroom. On the way to my locker, I ran into Jake. We have the same last name, so I run into him there a lot. 

“Hey, we need to talk today at lunch,” Jake said. “All of us.”

After History, I walked to the cafeteria and saw Jake already claiming a table. I got my lunch and sat down across from him. He smiled when he saw me. Cassie sat down a moment later. I was happy to see my best friend, but I felt sad that “all of us” was only us three now, at least in school.

And then, Erek King, one of the Chee, walked up. “Is this seat taken?” 

We waved him in, and he sat down. 

“I’m dulling out the noise in a bubble around us so no one will overhear,” Erek said. “Okay, that’s better. Someone tipped off the Yeerks about this Zenguh guy earlier this week, just before Marco informed us. They have teams searching the city for him, day and night. They knew where his original host lived, but they say he hasn’t returned there since they’ve been looking for him. They haven’t seen him at the Yeerk pool either.”

“Doesn’t he need to go back to the pool for Kandrona?” I asked. “I mean, he’s still a Yeerk. In fact, he’s several Yeerks right now.”

“Marco, Ax, and I talked about that, a bit. Maybe he’s got one of those portable Yeerk pool briefcases?” Jake suggested.

“The Yeerks thought of that too,” Erek said. "In one of the meetings we secretly sat in on, they said that all of the portable pools are accounted for.”

“Ax says that when we morph into something small, our extra mass gets pushed into Z-space,” Cassie said. “And the mass in Z-space is used when someone morphs into something bigger than themselves.”

We thought for a minute, then she continued, “So the mass has to just be in Z-space in some kind of mass bank, and it all gets treated the same, so maybe the mass doesn’t need to eat while it’s in Z-space?”

Jake nodded, “That makes sense to me. Marco had a similar idea. When I come out of a morph, I’m not two hours hungrier. I should ask Ax about that later.”

“I fear that this Yeerk may never return to the pool,” said Erek.

“Okay, that’s scary; at least to me. Are the Yeerks worried about him?” I asked Erek.

“They seem uncertain about him, but they mainly want to get their hands on the Andalite morphing technology that he has; the shard of the morphing cube. They also don’t like their invading force acting outside the Yeerk command structure, so they want to shut him down for that too.”

“Like the Yeerk peace movement!” said Cassie.

“That’s right,” Erek continued. “They’re looking pretty hard for him, but they don’t have much more to go on than you do. They’re mainly checking out missing persons reports filed with the police, and places someone could live without much notice. The latest intel says that the Yeerks have narrowed the next step in their search down to three locations.”

Cassie instinctively looked at Jake, but why should he get to make all the decisions?

“It should be tonight,” I said as Jake was opening his mouth. “The longer we wait, the more people he could capture. And maybe we can beat the Yeerks to him. We’re going to have to split into teams and check all three places.”

I suddenly realized that I had no idea how best to split us up.

Jake cut in, “Let’s wait to hear about these locations before we decide what the teams look like.”

I nodded and looked back at Erek. He started rattling off details.

“The first location is that old abandoned motel, off the highway. There are a lot of rooms he could be living in, and nobody around to keep him out. The second is an apartment complex near the beach. Several people have gone missing near there in the last week, and that complex is in walking distance to most of the missing people's last known locations. The third location is the park with all those hiking trails, just north of those same apartments, since he may be living outside.”

“Okay,” said Jake. “Rachel, you and Marco check out the abandoned motel.”

“Great!” I said, voice cheerful but dripping with sarcasm. “Going to a motel with Marco. Have you been reading my dream journal?”

“I, uh-” Jake stammered, maybe looking a little flushed. He composed himself quickly, and continued. “Cassie and I will go check out the park. Our great horned owl morphs will be great there at night.”

“Don’t we all have owl morphs?” I asked.

“Not Tobias,” said Cassie. 

“Oh yeah,” I said. “He was stuck as a hawk while we were acquiring…well, a lot of animals actually.”

“It’s fine,” said Jake, “He and Ax can check out the apartment complex. It might take more time to stake it out or search the rooms. It’s probably a big place. They won’t have easy access to the whole complex, since people live there.”

We sorted out the details as we ate together, then finished out the rest of the day, going through the motions to act like we still cared about school. Tobias met me outside as I left the building. I filled him in on what Erek had told us. We talked as he “walked” me home, then he flew off to tell Ax and Marco the plan. Now, all there was for me to do was wait for nightfall. And homework.


	12. Ax

<Tobias, this has been a particularly long stakeout,> I said. 

<No kidding, Ax-man,> Tobias answered next to me. <I’m BORED. Got any ideas?>

<On my home world, warriors are not supposed to get bored,> I responded. <But admittedly, we cadets often would hide in secret and make what humans call “bets” on tail blade fights amongst ourselves.>

The two of us were continually floating around the apartment complex, per Jake’s orders. We had arrived at the location early compared to the other Animorph stakeouts. It was not difficult to fly above concrete, and since the sun had not set yet, there was still warm air that kept us high in the air without much flapping of our wings.

<I don’t think we can go Andalite in that playground down there and battle it out just because we’re bored, unfortunately,> Tobias laughed.

<I have an idea, Tobias, but it would require you to do the bulk of the work,> I said, zipping by his red-tailed hawk body.

<What do you have in mind?> Tobias asked. <It’s been hours here, with no sign of Zenguh. Maybe we’re too early in the day. He’s probably not even here.>

<Across the street is a McDonald’s,> I hinted. <With all this Zenguh commotion this week, I have not had any time for the amazing human sensation of taste.>

Tobias laughed. 

<The two of us live in the woods,> he said. <McDonald’s costs money, and flying around as birds doesn’t fill the pockets with cash.>

<Ah yes, I thought of that,> I countered. <And I do not feel we should use our morphing powers to steal. However, perhaps we could convince the McDonald’s workers to give us some food?>

<I don’t want to go violent for a cheeseburger, Ax,> Tobias said.

I hesitated. Would Tobias approve of what I was about to suggest?

<The workers behind the counter of McDonald’s currently look about Prince Jake’s size, suggesting they are about the same age,> I explained. <As it is with Andalites, it is my understanding that human teenage males are particularly susceptible to the presence of a female, especially Marco would call a “hot” female, although I never sense any rise in temperature.>

We circled around the complex again, looking for anything at all out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, we did not know what we were looking for. The Yeerk could have taken any number of bodies if he was continuing the same plan we observed before.

<Ha! Where is Rachel when you need her?> Tobias joked. <Too bad our flirting wouldn’t get much in the way of free food.>

I paused again.

<You do possess a female morph, correct?> I asked. <You acquired Taylor not long ago during her elaborate trap.>

Now it was Tobias’ turn to be silent. I did not know how he would respond. I was only speculating on possibilities. 

<Genius, Ax,> Tobias said.

The plan went smoothly. Tobias found some female clothing hanging out to dry on a balcony, went behind a Dumpster to morph, and soon was inside the McDonald’s. He was morphed as Taylor, a blonde girl we had met who had a tragic downfall into life as a Controller. After less than ten minutes of being inside the restaurant, Tobias came outside, looked up at me still circling the complex, and motioned to meet in a stretch of woods beside the apartments. 

Tobias was laughing as he demorphed back to bird, and then to his human form. I demorphed to Andalite, and morphed into my human form, which is a combination of four Animorph’s DNA patterns. 

“I presume it went well?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” Tobias smiled. He tossed me a bag of food. “I didn’t have to do much at all. Girls have it easy, right?”

I didn’t come close to catching the fast food bag, and it fell on the ground. Luckily, the burger was still wrapped in paper, although dirt may have helped with additional flavor. Since I was not a human cook, I was not sure about the flavor enhancing abilities of dirt. My friends have told me I am not very good at choosing what is acceptable to eat.

For a few minutes, we escaped from the Zenguh mission. Tobias was, strangely, the only family I had this far away from the Andalite home world, and sitting on the grass eating salty and greasy cheeseburgers was a welcome distraction.

“Ax, how does your morph work?” Tobias suddenly asked.

“My human morph?” I clarified. “What about it?”

“Well, I mean, your human morph isn’t really anybody that exists on Earth,” Tobias explained. “I know you can morph Jake, for example, but the person you are right now, you just combined some of the Animorphs into a new person. You can do that?”

“Ah, you are asking how to blend a morph,” I said, understanding his question. I was surprised it took any of my human friends this long to think of it.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Tobias said, looking at me as he took the last bite of his burger. I had already finished my burger, with the paper wrapping as well.

As we resumed bird morphs and went back into the sky, I explained some of the science behind the idea of taking DNA through the acquiring process, and morphing through multiple DNA patterns at once. Tobias seemed to follow for most of the conversation, and I was proud of him for it.

<A hard rule is that you can’t go from one morph to another,> Tobias said, thinking aloud. <We tried it anyway, and it didn’t work. But are you saying that any DNA can be blended together?>

<In theory, yes,> I answered. <It is challenging, though. What did you have in mind?>

We continued to observe the apartment complex below us. More cars were pulling in the parking lot over the past few minutes. This is what I have been told is one of two “rush hours” in the human work day, where everyone returns to their residence at approximately the same time.

<Man! We could turn into a gorilla-tiger-bird, or a shark-squid-whale!> He seemed very excited about these hybrid animals. I needed to stress the difficulties.

<Tobias, I think Cassie has done something very close to what you are suggesting,> I explained. <Do you recall the time she held onto bird wings while morphing a whale above the ocean to defeat that dust creature, the _Valeek_? Same idea on the Hork-Bajir planet. She did not morph directly from one to another, but hung onto a little bit of both. However, it is very unpredictable, as even she had a difficult time controlling the morph, and she is a talented morpher. But you never know how much of each DNA pattern will become present in the hybrid morph.>

<But your human morph looks pretty much the same every time,> Tobias pressed.

<Yes, but that is because all four DNA patterns I am acquiring are human,> I continued. <These are very similar morphs, compared to tigers and gorillas, for example.>

<Makes sense, I suppose,> Tobias sighed. <We could do it, but we’d never know the exact final result we are going to get in the middle of a battle. Scrap that idea.>

<Each Animorph still has every acquired creature’s DNA pattern in their blood, so the morphs won’t disappear,> I said. <Just use them as intended, there is no hurry to make super-creatures.>

<It’s weird that we never thought of this before,> Tobias said. <It would have been cool to be a griffin.>

I didn’t know what that was, and did not press the issue.

<Humans are surprising,> I remarked. <They, as Prince Jake would say, “roll with the punches” very well. You all have not questioned the morphing technology that often. I suppose neither have I.>

<So, wait, we have all the DNA of these animals hanging around in our blood?> Tobias asked, continuing his train of thought.

However, an idea had just occurred to me.


	13. Tobias

The cheeseburgers had broken up some of the monotony that comes with stakeouts, but the boredom was kicking in again and the thermals were starting to die down as the sun moved toward the horizon. Even though it annoyed me to have Ax seemingly dodge my last question, I was relieved to hear him say, <I’m sorry, Tobias, but I have an idea that may move this mission along. Can we discuss the intricacies of morphing at a later time?>

<Sure thing, Ax-man. What’s your idea?>

<Do you remember that unfortunate experience when our excess masses in Z-space were struck by an errant spaceship, which dragged us into a war on the Leeran planet?> he asked. <I believe you were one of the first to be returned to Earth, but some of us, myself included, acquired Leeran DNA.>

<So, you can morph into a Leeran?> I asked. <I thought we couldn’t morph things that we acquired in a Sario Rip.>

<It was not a Sario Rip. We were really there, and we all remembered the events. As for the Leeran morph, I have not attempted it since we returned to Earth,> he admitted. <But I’d like to try now.>

<Why a Leeran?> I asked.

<You may recall that they have a special proclivity for…mind reading,> He sounded uneasy. <I’m hesitant to even suggest it, as it would be a huge invasion of privacy for the residents of these dwellings, but I do think it would help us locate this Yeerk, both faster and more accurately.>

<No, you’re right, _Cassie,_ > I said, mockingly. <We had better let this guy keep trapping innocent people as Yeerks instead.>

I swear Ax laughed at that, and said, <Your point is made, and I am acknowledging that as your approval.>

I stayed in the air, watching the area, as Ax flew down to the same Dumpster that I had used earlier. My amazing hawk eyes watched his blue Andalite fur change into the yellow reptilian skin of the psychic frog-like creature from another world.

Before long, Ax reported, <I can hear the thoughts from dozens of different minds, all coming from a very small area.>

<Well,> I said. <Someone’s either throwing a very quiet party, or we’ve found our Yeerk. Should we check it out?>

I joined Ax in his Dumpster. He pointed out where he heard all the thoughts coming from, and we became mosquitos.

<Amazing that our mosquito morphs and Leeran morph are so closely tied to the same Z-space mishap,> said Ax.

<Wait a minute, Ax,> I replied. <Is that a possible option? Zenguh is accumulating so many morphs, his Z-space mass must be huge. Maybe he’ll get pulled off Earth entirely like we did?>

<That could be a long wait, Tobias,> he answered. <Besides, we all popped back to Earth eventually, anyway, so it would be a temporary solution at best.>

Bummer.

We flew up to the apartment and found a gap between the balcony door and the door frame. We squeezed through, and were suddenly inside. I looked around. My mosquito eyes, though weak compared to a hawk’s, were able to see that this place was definitely strange. There were racks of clothing in every room. No refrigerator, no pantry, not even a bed. It looked like what I imagined Rachel’s apartment would look like when she eventually moved into her own place. 

There was a man rummaging through one of the racks in what I would have called the master bedroom. 

<I found him,> I told Ax. 

I demorphed to hawk, as Ax demorphed in the master bathroom. Ax popped out of the bathroom, and shouted, <It’s over, Yeerk!>.

The man fell over, terrified and surprised. He scrambled across the floor, into the living room, and into the kitchen until he was near the front door. I thought we might have had the wrong guy, until he snarled, “Andalite!”. Poor Yeerks, they just can’t help giving themselves away. The man, obviously Zenguh, reached into a drawer by the sink, pulled out a Dracon beam, and pointed it at Ax. As he aimed, I flew across the room, aiming for his face. 

“TSEEEEEER!” 

Oh…I get it now.

I couldn’t get the gun away from the man, but it distracted him long enough for Ax to close the distance and knock the weapon out of his hand with a smack from the blunt side of his tailblade. 

We made the classic mistake of watching the gun clatter to the ground, which gave him the opening to run out the front door.

Ax started out the door, but I stopped him. 

<Ax!> I shouted. <This is a crowded apartment building. We shouldn’t have an Andalite running around where people could see.>

He nodded, and began morphing into an adult man. 

<Who’s that?> I asked.

<The man in a suit, who was guarding your American President on our mission with David,> he answered. <I regret that I no longer have the suit. I liked it.>

I nodded my approval and took off after the Yeerk, as Ax picked out some clothes from one of the racks. I saw Zenguh running across the parking lot, but there was something strange going on. His hair was growing longer, and his clothes were growing looser. In moments, he had become a woman with long brown hair, that we had never seen before.

I relayed the information to Ax, who was just exiting the apartment door. Zenguh ran past an outdoor shopping center, and wove his way into a small crowd that was leaving a restaurant. He looked over his shoulder as he ran around the corner of the building. I thought-spoke his location to Ax, who was running as fast as he could. 

<How do people run with only two legs?> he asked for about the hundredth time, steadying himself on cars and walls as he ran.

I turned the corner, and he was gone. There was no one but a man locking his car door.

<Ax, I lost Zenguh!> I groaned. I flapped higher, straining my eyes for any sign of him, as the sun dipped low in the evening sky. I looked all around the building, between cars in the parking lot, the walkway to the beach behind the shopping center, but I couldn’t find him.

A man’s voice rang out. “Ow!” 

I turned to see Ax lying flat on the ground next to the man I had seen locking his car. I landed on the restaurant’s roof.

<Ax, what happened?> I yelled down.

<I was turning the corner, and I collided, full speed, with this man,> he thought-spoke, as he groaned with his mouth.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Ax said to the man. “I should have been watching where I was going. Are you hurt? Urt?”

The man picked himself up off the ground and started to speak, but then he got a good look at Ax. 

“Hey!” he yelled. “That’s my shirt!”

I looked at him again, and realized that I recognized the man! It was the same man who had given the speech at the birdwatching convention! That shouldn’t be possible, that man was a Yeerk inside a Yeerk inside of who knew how many Yeerks. 

The man, clearly Zenguh, realized that he had given himself away and took off running again. I could see the long brown hair returning as he, or possibly she at this point, rounded the corner of the grocery store, two buildings away from the restaurant. I had taken off when he started running, but by the time I got to the back of the grocery store, Zenguh was gone.

Ax jogged up. 

<Did we get him?> he asked.

<No,> I responded. <How is this Yeerk so slippery?>

<Ha! Ha!> Ax said. <Earth humor!>

<Oh, I guess it was, Ax,> I said as I landed on top of another Dumpster to think. <Hey, Ax, he keeps reverting to the brown-haired lady in between the other human morphs. She must be the most recent host, right?>

As I was finishing my thought, the Dumpster lid exploded upwards beneath me. I was launched into the air, as an antelope burst out of the garbage and ran through the parking lot toward the street.

<Tobias, are you well?> asked Ax.

<I’ll be okay. Morph something fast! We’ve got to catch him!>

I recovered, and flew after him. I morphed into my other hawk form for a bit of a speed boost, but I wasn't sure it would be enough. I could see the antelope, but it was fast, and it was getting difficult to keep it in focus as the sky grew darker. Zenguh was headed north, toward the park. Hopefully I could keep up, or he would lose me in the thick trees.


	14. Jake

<See anything yet, Cassie?> I asked, circling my owl body low above the playground in the southern portion of the park.

<No,> Cassie answered from the other side of the park. <Are you sure I shouldn’t try to use my wolf morph to keep searching?>

<Cassie, you don’t have to use wolf for everything. We all have plenty of morphs besides wolf, and we use them,> I suggested softly. I didn’t want to rile her up.

She didn’t respond to that, but flew toward me.

<Jake, do you hear that?> she asked.

The sun was pretty much fully down. My owl vision was lighting up the park, but when I listened hard, I could hear some commotion coming from just beyond the tree line.

Suddenly, an antelope burst out of some bushes, clopping quickly over the sidewalk and across the park.

<Jake! Jake!> I heard Tobias’ thought-speak voice calling. I saw him shooting toward us in the sky. <He’s an antelope, Jake. It’s Zenguh! He created quite a scene back there.>

I had guessed that antelopes weren’t native to this neighborhood park. Thanks, Tobias.

<On it, Tobias!> I yelled back. <Where’s Ax?>

<I think he may have fallen behind,> Tobias said. <Antelopes are freaking fast, apparently!>

<An antelope can get up to 60 miles per hour,> Cassie offered helpfully. <That’s a pretty good morph choice for a getaway.>

<Did we ever get an antelope morph?> I asked both of them. <We have so many at this point, it’s hard to keep track. Should we keep a list?>

<I don’t think we do,> Tobias said. <Some of us have mountain goats, I think. What if we just thought about a random antelope? If we have acquired one, it should work, right? I mean, I don’t remember exactly what that raccoon I acquired looked like.>

He seemed to be going off on his own tangent about morphing.

<Hey guys,> I said, vocalizing my realization. <Um, where did he go?>

We suddenly realized the park had gotten quiet again. The three of us stopped talking and looked around. I decided to land for a closer search.

<Tobias, let Marco and Rachel know we found the Yeerk. As long as we haven’t lost him. They should still be at that motel,> I said. <Cassie, stay in the air to watch for any trouble. I’m going down there.>

<Good luck, Jake!> Tobias said, flying away.

I landed behind a rather large metal slide and demorphed. I immediately remorphed tiger. This was an unpredictable situation, and the park was abandoned at this time of night anyway. Plus, I really didn’t want this rogue Yeerk to know we were humans. That was the last thing we needed. I hoped Ax was alright.

I saw movement in the bushes ahead. A figure, as dark as the night sky, emerged.

A black panther.

A tiger’s eyes are great for seeing in the dark, but the silhouette of the panther was still very difficult to spot in the shadows of the park.

The panther sauntered over to me, almost lazily.

<The Andalite bandits,> Zenguh said slowly, thought-speaking me directly for the first time. <Why won’t you leave me alone?>

<Fighting Yeerks is kind of our thing,> I said, forcing myself to sound cocky and confident like an Andalite should. A wind had picked up, blowing leaves and small branches across the park.

<I no longer have an interest in the Yeerk war on the humans,> he said, somewhat mockingly. <I have far better plans for myself. But I don’t need you in my way.>

<You’re trapping humans,> I shot back. Then I bluffed. <Whatever your end goal, we can’t have that. I have backup all around. You’re trapped.>

<Somehow, I doubt that,> Zenguh responded. <There’s only so many of you, and you have no idea the knowledge I’ve gained over the past few days. You can’t compete with me.>

We had begun circling each other, too distracted by our conversation to prevent the natural tendencies of the big cats in their pre-battle ritual. However, that last statement brought me to a stop.

<Last warning,> I said, in what I hoped was a stern voice. The wind abruptly stopped. 

<Have it your way,> came the reply. And he was on me in a flash.

Zenguh was so fast, my cat reflexes were not quite enough to completely dodge the attack. His bite sank into my back right leg, but before I could shake him off, he had let go and moved to the other side. I rolled to avoid the next attack, and scampered under the slide. Zenguh pounded hard on the slide, and the reverberating metal was shrill to my sensitive ears. 

He seized the chance to ram into my side with his front paws, and I was on my back. Then Zenguh dove directly toward my exposed belly, but I used the strength of all four paws to absorb the hit and propel him behind me. I raced to my feet and spun around. Nothing.

<Jake!> Cassie called from above. <Jake, behind you!>

Too late. I felt searing pain stretching from my right ear to my front right leg. I staggered.

<Ahhhh!> I yelled involuntarily.

I blindly swung a paw into the air. With complete luck, I connected with the side of the panther’s head. With a roar, he tackled me onto my side, and we rolled down a small hill, biting and clawing and scratching as we went. When we landed, Zenguh was on top of me, and again I was on my back. In the light of the moon, I saw his teeth glisten in a snarl. I heard his thought-speak laughter as he continually went for my neck, and my front legs were quickly growing tired from the effort of holding him back.

<Cassie…> my voice trailed off. I was focused on the gnashing teeth in front of me. The pain from before was decreasing, but so was my strength. My head was laying in something wet on the ground. 

WHAM!

His paw smacked my right eye.

WHAM!

His other paw smacked my left ear.

<I did not want to kill you,> Zenguh was telling me from afar. <But I need you all to leave me alone to my own plans! Stop inserting yourself into my private matters.>

I had enough energy. <That’s...what...she...said…,> I gasped.

As my vision faded, I saw something shoot down from the sky and collide with the panther’s face. And then I saw no more.


	15. Cassie

I had been hanging behind, up in the trees, like Jake asked. As the fight went on below me, it was getting harder and harder to resist morphing wolf and help, but I needed to be here in case Zenguh took off again. 

I followed Jake and Zenguh as they tumbled down the small hill, Zenguh landing on top. 

<Cassie…> Came Jake’s waning voice. If owls could cry, I wouldn’t have been able to see. I got some more height, then took a page out of Tobias’ book. As I dove, I could see the situation get worse and worse. If this worked, the Yeerk wouldn’t be seeing much of anything. 

My hoot didn’t strike as much terror as one of Tobias’ screeches would have, but it felt like justice as my talons found the panther’s eyes. His roars were deafening as I swooped back up, and into a tree. I turned to see him writhing on the ground, paws clutching at his face. 

<My eyes!> he yelled. After a moment, he regained his composure. <We Yeerks have fought against you enough to know how to fix this.>

He began to demorph into the brown-haired woman. I flew down to Jake’s side. <Jake! Wake up, Jake!> I screamed.

He was groggy and could barely move, but I knew that he couldn’t demorph right now for the same reason I couldn’t. We couldn’t let the Yeerks know we were human, even if Zenguh said he wasn’t working with them anymore. This would have to be up to me. 

<Hang in there, Jake!> I called, as I took off and fought for more height. I didn’t have much faith that the same maneuver would work twice, but what other tools did an owl have to fight something so much bigger than itself?

Zenguh was now fully human. “Are you the backup that the tiger was talking about? One little great horned owl? Bubo virginianus?”

Jake snickered at that. Boys. At least he was still conscious.

Zenguh continued, his voice saturated with sarcasm. “Well, I can certainly see why he was so confident,” he mocked, gesturing around the general area. “What with all this abundant firepower.”

I flew behind a tree to break Zenguh’s line of sight, hoping for at least directional surprise. My breathing was ragged with emotion, but my wings were utterly silent as I dove straight for Zenguh’s face. At the last second, he turned and grabbed for me. His hands closed around my body, and he threw me, hard, onto the ground. He followed up the attack with a kick that sent me flying into a park bench. I could feel a broken wing, and probably a rib or two. 

“I know that if I leave you two like this, you can morph back to Andalites,” Zenguh spoke, calmly. “And you’ll be able to come after me again at full strength. I could crush you here, with a rock or even my foot, but I’ve got a better idea.”

A devilish smile crossed the Yeerk’s face, and then the smile turned to fangs. Black fur spread over the brown-haired woman’s body, and I watched helplessly as a fully grown black bear formed in front of me. 

<I’m going to eat you, instead, Andalite,> Zenguh said, walking nearer. He got closer and closer, savoring the moment. I closed my eyes as the bear’s jaws opened, inches from my face.

<Don’t bring a cub to a bear fight!> roared Rachel, a seven-foot-tall grizzly bear, as she erupted out of the darkness.

All seven hundred pounds of her slammed full force into Zenguh, and the black bear was thrown through the air, hitting another tree with a stomach-dropping crack. Zenguh, amazingly, pulled himself to his feet and lunged at Rachel. He was faster than Rachel, covering her in shallow cuts, but Rachel punished any of his mistakes with devastating force. Rachel dodged a swipe, causing the black bear to overextend and lose balance slightly. Rachel grabbed him in a full bear hug and slammed him to the ground, putting most of her considerable weight onto his head.

The black bear’s head struck the cement walkway, and he lay still. Rachel looked for a moment to make sure the fight was over, then stood on her hind legs and let loose with an ear-splitting roar of triumph. 

Then we heard a familiar voice in the dark, “Do not be alarmed.”

We turned our heads to see Mr. King, the Chee android who was currently acting as Erek King’s father, drop his hologram and materialize out of thin air. 

“I’ll watch the Yeerk,” he said. “If he wakes, he will only see Andalites leaving the park. Tend to your wounded.”

Rachel turned back to me, still towering above me on two legs, and asked, <Cassie, are you okay?>

<I’ll be fine, but I’m not sure about him,> I said, looking at Jake. I began to demorph.

Rachel finally saw Jake lying on the ground, and fell to all fours. <Jake!>

She started demorphing and ran to his side, her run becoming a crawl as her legs changed lengths. I joined her as soon as I could walk. 

“Stay awake!” I said, my voice full of urgency. Helping my parents with their veterinary work had taught me enough big cat first aid to know where to put pressure, but things weren’t looking great.

Just then, out of the trees bounded a hulking silverback gorilla. 

<Gorillas are terrible long distance runners!> came Marco’s exhausted voice.

<Jake!> Marco gasped, and shuffled over to his best friend. He lifted Jake’s tiger head out of the puddle of blood in his big primate hands. <Wake up, buddy!>

Jake groaned a bit, then lay back down, trying to fall asleep. Marco flicked Jake on the nose with his huge fingers, and Jake bolted to attention.

<Hey! What was that for?> he asked, groggy but very irritated.

We made little sounds of joy, seeing him awake, but then I focused and said, “Jake, you’re hurt. Badly. You need to demorph.”

That got his attention, and slowly, the tiger began to morph into a human. Until it stopped. 

“He’s unconscious again!” I cried, my pain all the greater in the contrast of the joy of a few seconds ago.

A scuffing sound from where we had left Zenguh got our attention. We turned and saw the brown-haired woman fall to all fours as she became the antelope again. 

<What? Is that…?> asked Marco.

“It’s Zenguh,” I whispered. “He’s getting away!”

None of us were in any condition to chase him. 

“Mr. King,” I said. “Can you follow him?”

“Jake is in peril,” he said, approaching us. “My programming forbids me from leaving him in this state. I can, however, offer medical assistance.”

“Please!” I begged him.

Mr. King knelt down next to Jake, and began cauterizing wounds, injecting fluids, and finally administering a jolt of electricity. Jake’s eyes shot open, and he took a deep, gasping breath. Once he remembered where he was, he morphed human again, and I slumped on top of him with an exhausted, “Thank you.”

“Did you know that the Chee were here?” Rachel asked Jake. 

“I thought we could use all the help we could get,” Jake said. Mr. King agreed to come along to provide cover if we needed it.”

“I’m mad that Mr. King didn’t help more,” Rachel complained. “We got hurt pretty badly, and it was really hard to see Zenguh in the dark. But at least he still thinks we’re Andalites.”

"Yeah, _and a light_ would have been helpful, too," I said, grinning.


	16. Rachel

Knowing that Zenguh was still on the loose had really put us all on edge. I blamed myself for assuming he was done for and letting him get away. I went home and had a fitful sleep. 

I dreamed I was at the beach. Tobias was circling overhead, then flew down to join me. He morphed to human, and we held hands as we walked along the shore. The sun started to set, and the sky turned a beautiful orange. As we watched the sun go down, the sky turned more and more red, and the sun grew larger. It soon grew to fill the entire sky, and it became the giant, horrible eye of Crayak. Tobias was gone, the ocean was gone, and only sand and Crayak remained, as far as I could see.

Then, Crayak spoke, making the whole world around me tremble. 

“I see you’re having trouble getting rid of a Yeerk. It must be so difficult being confined to such a tiny, weak body.”

“I’m not having trouble,” I said. “He got some hits on me, but I clobbered him!”

“And yet he escaped,” Crayak rumbled. “A stronger being could have killed him. Ended the problem forever.”

Was Crayak right? Had I let Zenguh live? I had crushed the black bear’s head into the pavement. That usually ends fights. 

“You’re afraid of what your friends would think, what Jake would think if you had killed the Yeerk,” he continued. “If you would kill Jake for me, you wouldn’t have to worry what he thinks.”

“I’m not going to kill my cousin!” I yelled. “Besides, the Yeerk got away because of my concern for Jake!”

“Ah, so you admit that Jake is to blame,” Crayak mused. “My offer to make you into Super-Rachel is still on the metaphorical table. Just kill Jake for me. Your friends might see you as a monster, but you could be the monster with the power to save the world from the Yeerks. Think about it.”

Suddenly, I was in my bed. The sun was rising, filling the sky with a brilliant red-orange. Great, Crayak had ruined sunrises for me. I got up, and walked to the kitchen and poured myself some cereal. It was Friday, but it was also a glorious teacher workshop day. No school for us Animorphs to pretend we cared about. About an hour later, the phone rang. 

It was Cassie. 

“Hey! How about a nature hike through the woods?” 

That was code to meet at Ax’s scoop. 

I left the house soon after, and flew to the woods. I was a bald eagle; powerful, graceful, inspiring. Not that different from my usual self, really. The dream had shaken my confidence, but I knew who I was. I think.

The others were already there, and I landed near Jake and Marco, who were engaged in one of their weekly ‘who would win in a fight’ arguments.

“There’s no way The Hulk could even hit The Flash! He’s too fast!”

“But The Flash couldn’t hurt The Hulk! Hulk’s too tough!”

“He could if the Flash used a board with a nail in it!”

I walked between them, and demorphed as dramatically as I could. Their surprised screams were music to my ears. Morphing isn’t exactly a beautiful process. 

“Everybody sit down,” Jake said to us all. “We’ve got some things we need to discuss. First of all, someone called the police because the park is covered in blood. Some of it is mine, some of it is Rachel’s, some of it is Zenguh’s; but we’ve all got to make an effort to stop leaving blood around town.”

<If they test the blood, is it going to come back as human or animal?> Tobias asked. <I meant to follow up with Ax before, but we got kind of distracted.>

Jake looked concerned. “Hmm, that’s a good question. Do you know, Ax?”

<It should show up as tiger or bear blood, in this case, but with DNA from any animal that you have acquired, including your own.>

Well, that wasn’t good. It was going to be pretty alarming if someone tested the blood. 

“We’ve been getting hurt in battles for years! Our blood’s gotta be all over the place!” I said.

“That’s another good reason to be careful,” said Jake.

<I have something related to that,> said Tobias, fluttering down to the log I was sitting on. <Ax and I found Zenguh’s apartment. We chased him through his neighborhood, and he changed into that birdwatcher guy, but he shouldn’t have been able to do that, since his outermost host would never have had an opportunity to acquire him.>

“That’s weird,” I said. “But I don’t see how that’s related.”

<Well,> Tobias said. <Since we have DNA from everything we’ve acquired floating around in our blood, I think that if we were to acquire someone that has used the morphing cube, we would acquire all of the DNA in their blood, including all of the morphs that they have acquired.>

Ax looked stunned. <I would say that I wasn’t paying attention that day in school,> he said. <But I honestly don’t think that we Andalites have thought that much into it, as much as it pains me to admit that.>

<I have been thinking a lot about what else we can do with morphing,> Tobias said as he looked around the clearing. <Zenguh thinks of this stuff so fast, it’s hard to keep up.>

I was proud of Tobias.

<Cassie,> he started. <Do you remember when Rachel was going on that talk show, after she fell through the floor of her bedroom?>

“Yeah,” Cassie said. “That’s why I made that ‘and a light’ callback yesterday. That’s, like, one of my favorite things I’ve ever said!”

I had to speak up. “I fell through my floor because I was having an allergic reaction, and I accidentally morphed into an elephant. I’m not floor-breakingly fat, okay?”

“That’s right, Rachel. You look great,” Jake said. Cassie raised an eyebrow.

<Anyway, Cassie acquired Rachel, before she went on the show, in case anything went wrong with Rachel’s allergic reaction to the crocodile,> Tobias explained. <Everything still went wrong, and a bear fought a crocodile on television, but Cassie was able to smooth things over with the show’s producer, in morph as Rachel.>

He turned to Cassie and said, <I’d like to try something.>

Cassie looked nervous. “What’s that?” she asked.

<You’ve never acquired a grizzly bear, have you?> Tobias asked.

“I haven’t.”

Tobias looked at Cassie intensely. I don’t think he did it on purpose, that’s just how hawks are. <Cassie, I’d like you to try to morph into Rachel’s grizzly bear.>

Cassie looked at the floor as we all watched her. She closed her eyes. Nothing happened for a few moments, but then her arms sprouted thick brown fur, her fingernails became huge claws, and she grew to the size of a small car. It was the only time I had ever seen a grizzly bear look surprised. She quickly morphed back to human. 

“That’s amazing!” I said. “So that’s how Zenguh is retaining all of his morphs, even though his outer layer body keeps changing?”

<It seems that way. Every time he gets a new host body, the new body acquires the DNA from the previous host body via the Yeerk wrapped around the new host’s brain, because it’s all in there,> Tobias said. <Should we all acquire each other, to share our morphs? It would add a lot of versatility to the team.>

“I’m not letting Marco acquire me!” I said. “Who knows what he’d do?”

“Aww shucks!” Marco said dramatically, slapping his knee and laughing loudly.

I turned to Cassie as people were chuckling at Marco, and said privately, “Since you’ve acquired me, can I acquire you back?”

She thought for a moment, and said, “I think I’d be okay with that. It’s only fair, and we _are_ best friends.”

I put my arm around her in a side hug. She returned it, and her head rested on my shoulder as the calm from the acquiring trance washed over her.


	17. Jake

This was a major turn of events. The idea that we all could cross-acquire each other’s morphs was a big revelation. It made me angry that we hadn’t thought of it before, and yet Zenguh, having acquired the morphing technology only a week ago, was already finding loopholes that we had missed. Besides, it had already been a rough morning with Tom. He was clearly in an irritated mood all morning before dashing out the door. Probably off to figure out the Yeerk side of this whole Zenguh thing, if Crayak was to be believed. Also, Rachel was particularly standoffish. Weird.

And, you know, I had almost died in the last battle, which somehow was ranking low on my list of problems.

Tobias’ next comment snapped me back to the present, back to Ax’s scoop.

<You know, it’s a good thing the Yeerks have never tried to examine our blood,> said Tobias, flying up onto a pine branch. <Like Rachel said, we’ve been bleeding all over the place during battles. They could even find _our_ DNA mixed in there.>

“True,” I agreed, heart hammering a bit at the thought. “But it seems we have bigger problems right now. If the Yeerks haven’t taken advantage of the blood situation until this point, it seems doubtful they’d check blood anytime soon. Let’s just hope they don’t, at least. We’ve got to focus on Zenguh.”

Marco was still making jokes in the background about acquiring Rachel, and Cassie and Rachel were having their own conversation.

<It is very Yeerk-like to overlook an advantageous situation,> Ax smirked, both with his eyes and tone. <Another disadvantage of never creating their own technology.>

“How is he getting all these people, anyway?” Marco suddenly asked, his joking demeanor stopping abruptly. We all looked at him.

“I mean, Zenguh has to have enough time to grab the next potential host, subdue them, make his current host morph Yeerk, and sneak into the new host’s ear,” he explained, sitting down suddenly on an old, decaying log. “That’s a lot of time for the potential new host to freak out and run away.”

“How is he even getting a new Yeerk morph each time?” Cassie wondered aloud. “Oh, right. He can acquire himself, within the host’s head. He never has to catch a new Yeerk. Man, this is a lot to keep track of. It may be tougher than Algebra class.”

“Tobias and I saw him catch the zookeeper,” Rachel said. “But she just laid there, and I don’t know why! Zenguh just put a hand on her and that was that!”

“I suppose, though...” Marco continued his train of thought, rubbing his temples. “Remember when I saw my mom downtown, when I skipped school, back before I had to fake my death? My mom’s doing great, by the way. Anyway, I acquired this guy named Mr. Grant by just holding his hand and leading him through his own work building, practically to his office!”

Cassie let out an audible gasp. “Those poor people, being led to their doom in the acquiring trance. That’s awful.”

Ax swung an eye stalk toward Cassie, while keeping the rest of his eyes on me.

<I also may have found something,> Ax began. <During our encounter with Zenguh, I got a bit...lost in the chase, so I returned to the apartment complex. I went back into his home and noticed he had no bed, or food, or anything other than an exorbitant amount of clothing.>

<Like, way too many clothes,> Tobias interjected.

That caught Rachel’s attention. “No such thing!” she said, seemingly appalled.

<Ah yes, too many clothes, an arbitrary measurement of humans,> Ax said. <Anyway, it was just clothes and a computer. I quickly bypassed the security on the computer. Zenguh had not used Yeerk technology to protect it any better than humans. It was quite easy, actually—>

“Hey, Ax?” Marco interrupted. “Can you shorten this story?”

Ax continued, unphased by Marco after so much time fighting alongside him.

<Unfortunately, the information is still processing on the primitive homemade computer in my scoop,> Ax said. <But there were some encrypted notes that seemed to be written by Zenguh. Perhaps they will be useful for our next battle.>

Another battle. Fun times.

“So, what was the point of his apartment?” Rachel asked. It was a legitimate question.

“I think I’ve figured that part out, too,” Marco responded. Leave it to Marco to quickly see connections that we all missed.

He looked around at our small group.

“Look, we’ve talked about how it’s questionable if you need to eat in morph, and where that energy translates,” Marco said. “However, if you’re constantly morphing into something new, you’re holding off that hunger, two hours at a time. I would expect the same thing would happen with sleep. With each new morph, Zenguh is essentially recharging.”

We all looked at him, slowly following his logic.

“So that’s why he doesn’t need a bed or food!” he continued, a bit impatiently. “Really, the apartment just becomes a place to store clothes and any tech. It probably even belongs to someone he’s already acquired, so nothing’s out of the ordinary there either.”

<And imagine how much he could get done with no sleep,> Tobias said. <That means he could be trapping a lot of people when we aren’t even awake! Let’s see, twenty-four hours in a day, two hours at a time to get stuck in morph... include trapping time. He has to wait until the newly morphed Yeerk goes _nothlit_ to acquire it yet again and start the whole process over.>

“Yay, everyday uses for math in the real world,” Marco said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Think this is what our teachers meant?”

<He could be trapping up to ten or twelve people per day,> Tobias said.

<Not to mention, each human he traps adds to his repertoire of memories, so he could be learning quite a lot, at a very fast rate,> Ax added.

I took a deep breath.

“Okay guys,” I said. “Next goals: Tobias and Ax? Stay here and see what was on Zenguh’s computer. We need to know his next plans. Rachel, Marco, and Cassie come with me. I followed Tom a bit before our meeting today, and I want to see what he’s up to.”

Another deep breath. I hadn’t exactly told the team about my conversation with Crayak.

“If the Yeerks are as concerned about this as we are, then Tom is on the front lines of their plan for a solution. We’re going after Zenguh, and so are the Yeerks. Let’s find him and see where this goes.”

“Let’s do it!” Rachel yelled immediately.

We all got quiet.

“This is a nightmare,” Cassie whispered softly.


	18. Cassie

We had looked for Tom all morning, but still hadn’t had any success. Jake had a pretty good idea of where Tom usually hung out, but after checking out the beach, the mall, and a couple of his favorite lunch places, we decided we had to check out the Community Center. We were reluctant, of course, to go into the headquarters of The Sharing, but it was the only plan we had.

We were tired and hungry from our morning’s activities, so it was awesome when Rachel offered to pick up lunch from the taco shop that was just a short walk from the Community Center. Ax was going to be jealous that he missed out on tacos. Marco and I covered the side and rear entrances from the air, while Jake watched the front, looking like he was waiting for someone.

Twenty minutes later, we saw Rachel return, so we all demorphed out of sight and grouped up. I could tell something was wrong while she handed out tacos. 

“Hey, Rachel,” I said privately, after everyone had their food. “What’s up? You look like something’s bothering you.”

She came with me to eat by the entrance I was watching. 

“Yeah,” she replied. “Something weird happened on the way to the taco shop. I was walking down the street, thinking about what morphs I got from you. I’m really excited about the cape buffalo, and I’ve got another one that I’ve actually practiced a few times now.”

I laughed. “Yeah, that buffalo does seem like your style. What’s the other morph?”

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “Anyway, as I got to the restaurant, this frazzled-looking blonde woman came around the corner. She was looking around like she lost something, and she came up to me and asked if I’d seen her cat. I told her no, but that I’d keep an eye out. She grabbed my hands, and started telling me what her cat looks like, and then trailed off and looked surprised. I asked her what’s going on, and she told me that I have really soft hands.”

“Huh,” I said. “The crazy people around here are so polite.”

“She ran off and I got our food, but the whole thing just made me uncomfortable,” Rachel said.

I didn’t know what to say to that, so we ate in silence, keeping an eye out for Tom.

“I’ve got to go back, and see what that lady’s deal was,” Rachel announced after we had finished eating.

“Why?” I asked.

“Something about the whole interaction just rubs me the wrong way,” she responded.

“Then I’ll come with you,” I said, standing. “I’ll let Jake know we’ll be right back.”

“If you want,” said Rachel, and started walking.

I told Jake, and then caught up with Rachel. She had already crossed the street, and I would have had to jog to catch her if she hadn’t stopped and ducked behind a parked car.

Rachel turned and saw me behind her. 

“There she is!” she hissed, pointing at the woman in the taco shop’s parking lot, still a few buildings away. 

I watched as she approached a man in jeans and a blazer, a fearful look in her eyes. The man looked around for something. She had probably told him about her missing cat. She stepped closer, and grabbed his hands. Almost immediately, his posture relaxed, and she led him behind the restaurant.

A chill ran through me, and Rachel’s legs buckled and she fell to the ground as we realized who we were looking at. The frazzled woman was Zenguh, and we had just seen him catch his latest victim. 

“That was almost me!” Rachel breathed, hands shaking. Her expression of fear and shock was quickly replaced by one of realization, and then it turned to anger. “Let’s get him,” she snarled, balling her hands into fists.

“Hold on, Rachel,” I said. “If we get him now, we might win, but he might get away. Plus, this is a pretty public area. If we follow him, he might lead us to his, like, base, or whatever you call it.”

“But we can still save the blazer guy!” Rachel said. “And who cares about his base? It’s probably just more clothes!”

“If it looks like Zenguh’s going to Yeerk him, we can step in,” I said. “I just don’t want to risk missing out on some new base or whatever that he may have, now that we busted his apartment situation.”

Rachel reluctantly followed me, as I followed Zenguh quietly. Zenguh, in turn, led the man in the blazer to a more secluded area. It wasn’t long before the pair approached the back entrance of a building. Zenguh let go of one of the man’s hands, and unlocked the door. The label on the door said “Honey Glazed Hams”.

“The perfect spot,” I said. “No one ever goes into those places.”

“I’m going for it,” said Rachel, breaking into a run as the door started to swing closed. 

“No!” I yelled quietly, but Rachel got to the door just in time to keep it from closing. She went inside and I ran after her, only barely catching the door before it closed and locked me outside. I entered the building in time to see Zenguh start morphing Yeerk, skin already a sickly yellow-brown color, pressing his face to Blazer Guy’s ear. I also saw Rachel leaping through the air, feet first, delivering a two-footed drop kick to Zenguh’s ribs. Zenguh lost contact with Blazer Guy, and rolled a few feet away from the impact. 

Blazer Guy shook his head like he was waking up, then screamed and ran straight past me, to the door they had come in through. 

Zenguh got up, reversed his morph, back to the frazzled blonde woman, and looked to see what had hit him. “You!” he said, recognition in his face. “You're the one I couldn’t put into the trance!”

Rachel stepped closer, swinging a fist and connecting full-strength with Zenguh’s left eye. Zenguh spun, and crashed into a pile of boxes. Rachel didn’t give him a chance to recover. She leapt on top of him, landing punch after punch to his face. Zenguh flailed his arms and legs, landing a couple of glancing blows on Rachel, but Rachel was unfazed. 

I heard the rip of the blonde woman’s clothes, and saw a leg turn furry and black. Rachel flew back into the middle of the floor, a huge gash across her face. Blood pooled on the floor where she landed, but to my astonishment, Rachel climbed to her feet and got into a fighting stance. 

As I watched, the cuts on her face disappeared. 

She lunged at Zenguh, who had now fully turned into a black bear. She dodged a paw swipe, and landed a knee strike to the bear’s neck. It stumbled back, clutching at its neck, and Rachel jumped through the air and struck the bear right between the eyes with an elbow. The bear buckled over, now gripping its nose. Rachel swung again, and connected with the bear’s ribs, but the bear countered with a paw swipe to Rachel’s midsection. Her blood sprayed the wall, and I heard her scream in pain as she was thrown into a stainless steel refrigerator, but just like before, the wound healed and disappeared in seconds. 

Rachel stood again, and her eyes found a knife. Apparently, they really did work with hams in this store. I still couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but I shook it off and began to morph into my wolf. 

Rachel and the bear ran at each other. I gasped as Rachel caught another brutal paw to the face, which spun her neck around a scary amount. Rachel fell to the floor and lay still. Full of shock and anger, I turned my eyes back to the bear and began to growl, now fully wolf. That’s when I saw the knife stuck deep in the bear’s chest. It had to be puncturing either the bear’s lungs or heart. The bear fell to the ground, and grabbed for the knife. Its paws couldn’t grip the knife, and with my vet training, I knew that wouldn’t have been a good idea anyway.

Exasperated, Zenguh began to morph back to human, and I looked back at Rachel. I saw her head turning back to its normal direction, and she slowly sat up. 

<Rachel!> I cried. <You’re alive! And I think I guessed what your new favorite morph is.>

“Yep! I got a copy of my DNA when I acquired you!” she said with one of her dazzling smiles. “It's also the reason he couldn't put me in the acquiring trance; you can't acquire someone in morph. I got the idea from Tobias and his other hawk. But let’s deal with this guy first.”

I stalked up to Zenguh, who was gripping the knife with human hands. He pulled it out, and screamed in pain. 

<Stop right there,> I told the Yeerk. <You’re not going anywhere.>

Rachel joined us, then began to grow large and grey. The bleeding Zenguh was now cornered by a wolf and an African elephant. I finally looked around at the room, confident that he wouldn’t escape us both. There were people handcuffed to a series of steel pipes that lined the wall across from the entrance. 

<What is all this?> I asked him.

<I don’t care what it is!> yelled Rachel. <I let him get away twice now. Not this time.>

She raised her massive front right foot over his head.

<No!> I yelled. <If you kill him, you kill everyone he’s trapped inside him!>

<They’re already worse than dead!> she said. <They’re _nothlits_ , trapped in Z-Space! We can’t even get them out!>

Her weight shifted over her front right foot. I panicked at the thought of her doing something so irreversible, and I jumped between her foot and Zenguh. 

<We can’t!> I yelled.

<We have to!> Rachel said. <Move!>

Just then, an explosion ripped through the door we came through, filling the air around us with flame and splintered wood.


	19. Ax

<Is there anything worse than watching a computer loading screen?> Tobias asked.

<I am limited by this primitive human technology,> I said. <It is slowing me down significantly. I wonder how the rest of the group is doing.>

<What, you’re worried that something will go wrong?> Tobias questioned, with a hint of what I detected as human sarcasm. <Sending the rest of the team, which is the Earth’s only human resistance against the Yeerks, into The Sharing’s base of operation, where I got tortured by the way, for clues to help us find a super-smart, morph-capable, rogue Controller who’s bent on absorbing the human race? What could go wrong?>

<You’ve been hanging out with Marco a lot since his relocation, haven’t you?> I asked.

Tobias laughed. <Yes,> he said. <Yes, I suppose I have.>

We sat in silence, watching a multitude of numbers flash across the screen. I must have been a bit too focused, because I never heard the approach of someone behind us.

“Need a little help?” Erek the Chee asked, stepping out from behind a tree.

Tobias jumped a little, and lost a feather or two.

<Erek!> he exclaimed. <Dang, man, a bird and an Andalite and you still snuck up on us?>

Erek smiled, or rather his hologram projected a smile.

“As much as I would like to brag about my ninja skills, I... didn’t necessarily plan to come here,” the android said. “I just suddenly...was here.”

<Oh boy,> Tobias said, looking at me. <I wonder who could be behind that.>

In response, a voice came from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

IT WAS ME, THE ELLIMIST.

<Oh, wow,> Tobias said, rolling his little hawk eyes. <What a surprise.>

HELLO AXIMILI, HELLO TOBIAS, HELLO EREK, said the Ellimist. EREK, I NEVER THANKED YOU FOR YOUR HELP ON THE ISKOORT PLANET.

Erek looked around the woods, clearly unsure how to address the Ellimist.

“No problem,” he said, uncertainly.

Tobias and I looked at each other. He was in a slightly different red-tailed hawk morph, trying out the effects of staying away from his own body to test the limits of morphing. I had to admit, I was impressed by the Animorphs’ recent deep dive into the morphing power’s intricacies. On our planet, the technology was so new we hadn’t fully considered all consequences.

I watched Tobias subtly demorph from new hawk to old hawk, presumably to avoid questions.

A breeze kicked up debris from the forest floor, causing leaves and twigs to swirl slightly in the air. Suddenly, a small creature, one that Marco had described as “elvish”, emerged from the small whirlwind. This was a common physical form that the Ellimist took during our conversations.

“Making any progress?” the Ellimist asked, seemingly cheerful. He usually was not so direct. Straight answers were not typically a common decency of the Ellimist.

<Is that why you have come?> I asked somewhat scornfully. <To check on your resistance pawns?> I did not like the Ellimist’s games. Andalites do not generally appreciate being used in the larger schemes of others.

“Why, Aximili, is there a rule that says I cannot coach my favorite team?” the Ellimist asked innocently, taking a few steps toward myself and Tobias. Erek was behind the Ellimist, looking a bit nervous. This was his first one-on-one experience with such a being.

I kept an eyestalk on the screen of the processing computer. The download seemed to have hit a snag. In fact, the screen appeared frozen.

<You and Crayak say you cannot interfere, but who knows to what degree _that_ holds,> Tobias snapped. Perhaps he was still upset about the Ellimist’s “trick” from long ago, keeping Tobias in hawk form while returning his morphing powers to him.

“We have made a few, shall we say, exceptions in this case,” the Ellimist explained, with a slight smile. “This situation has turned quite grave in a very, very short amount of time.”

I quickly tapped a few keys on the makeshift keyboard, but to no avail. The encryption Zenguh had used appeared to have locked up the system near the very end of the process.

Erek stepped forward. “I agree,” he said. “But even our intelligence is having trouble finding details. We know the Yeerks are extremely stressed out, but that’s pretty much it.

Erek turned to the Ellimist.

“Why am I here?” he asked simply.

The Ellimist dropped his smile. I attempted a few quick rewires to the computer, still listening to the conversation.

“Crayak and I have modified a few rules,” the Ellimist said. “He has...subtly informed the Yeerks of Zenguh’s situation, and I have subtly brought a Chee here, to Aximili’s scoop. Two plays that are equally fair, I think.”

<’Subtly,’ ha,> Tobias said.

The Ellimist ignored this remark and addressed me, still fumbling with the flashing error displays.

“Having trouble, Aximili?” the Ellimist asked innocently.

I stopped what I was doing and focused all my attention back to the Ellimist.

<You knew this technology would not work to decipher Zenguh’s information,> I said. It was a statement, not a question.

“I merely believed that perhaps you could use the help of some more advanced technology, without the hassle,” the Ellimist said, chuckling. “Erek, can you provide some assistance?”

Erek walked over to the computer, giving me a questioning look.

<Isn’t that a fun feeling?> Tobias muttered.

Erek put out his hologrammed hand, and the image disappeared, revealing the metallic paw-like form of his android extremities. A thin, metal piece came out of his hand and inserted into my computer, and in no time at all, the encrypted message had been broken through and was displayed easily on the monitor.

Tobias, Erek, and I crowded around the screen to read the visual display. I was shocked by what I was reading. This Yeerk was truly going rogue, spurning the Yeerks and maximizing every aspect of Andalite morphing technology. He had to be stopped, and now we knew where to go.

“You have all the tools you need,” the Ellimist said from behind us. “Remember that sometimes you have to sacrifice an important piece to win a game of chess.”


	20. Marco

“Look, all I’m saying is the Lakers aren’t a lock to win the championship this year,” I told Jake through a mouthful of taco. 

“What, and you think the Kings or the Clippers are?” Jake asked. 

“Well,” I thought out loud. “Why does it even have to be one of those three teams? There’s a lot of other teams besides those. Why are you focusing on those so much?”

“No reason,” Jake said. “Hey, by the way, where did the girls go?”

We looked around, but our little spot was abandoned. 

“Didn’t they say they’d be right back?” I asked.

“Yeah, but that was a while ago.”

“Oh.”

“So, should we keep with the plan?” Jake asked me. “There’s only two of us now, apparently.”

“We can’t skip out now,” I said. “Miss out on the Batman and Robin experience? No way. Let’s…” I trailed off.

“What?”

I shuddered and answered, “I almost said ‘Let’s do it’.”

“Close one, Robin,” said Jake, suppressing a grin.

“Still, though, I could morph something and reach out in thought-speak, see if they’re still close by,” I suggested.

And that’s why I found myself in poodle morph inside of a Porta Potty at the playground. The superhero business is obviously extremely glamorous. I tried thought-speaking to Cassie and Rachel, but either they were too far away to hear me, or they were unable to thought-speak back because they weren’t in morph. Jake joined me, and we decided to go squirrel. 

<Sure could have used those cell phones at the mall,> Jake grumbled.

It’s tough to notice a suspicious squirrel in a playground. So tough, in fact, that we actually walked right through the front doors of the convention center undetected. 

<That was weird,> I said. <Where is everybody?>

<I’m not sure,> Jake admitted. <I don’t even know where Tom would be at this point. The only time we’ve been to this place is through the playground tunnel entrance.>

<I guess this part of the building wouldn’t look particularly suspicious, right?> I asked. <I mean, this is where big events for The Sharing are hosted. It shouldn’t scream “Aliens Are Here” or anything.>

We made our way down a few hallways, not totally sure what we should be looking for. The deeper into the building we went, the more nervous I got in squirrel morph. We were totally exposed, and I didn’t think I could put up much of a fight in a form where my bushy tail was as big as my body. We decided to squeeze through an air conditioning vent and wandered around through the ceiling instead. 

Finally, I heard something.

<Jake, man, turn right up there, I think I hear voices.>

We got to the end of one of the vent shafts and peered through the horizontal grate of a vent. Sure enough, a ton of people were crowded into what looked like an office break room, and there was Tom in the middle of them.

“Quite down everyone,” Tom said, sounding way more intense than the Tom I knew back before this whole war started.

“Our spies have confirmed that this Yeerk, Zenguh Two-Zero-Zero-One, still has the piece of morphing cube,” Tom said to the crowd around him. So, this group was all Controllers. Good to know.

“Visser One is pretty annoyed by Zenguh,” Tom continued. “Not only has this Yeerk refused to hand over Andalite morphing technology to us; he is also unpredictable. The visser has said to use any means necessary to get rid of this threat. We don’t even have to wait for the traditional trial by the Council of Thirteen. We can eliminate him once and for all, ourselves, right now.”

There was some generic murmuring from the group. You know, bad-guy-crony-type muttering.

One of the Controllers, a younger girl about my age, spoke up.

“How can we find him?” the Controller asked. “The Andalite bandits have been eluding us for years with morphing powers. He could be anywhere!”

There were nods and sounds of approval from the crowd.

“Ah, yes, the Andalite bandits,” said Tom, with an edge in his voice. “The difference here is that the Andalite bandits, if that is indeed what they are, keep hidden and don’t draw attention to themselves outside of battles. Zenguh, on the other hand, has built a bit of a home base just down the street, and is kidnapping people in this town left and right. I’ll admit, it took us a few days to find his location, because we didn’t look nearby. But due to some recent information, we have a read on him now, and backup is on the way.”

Jake and I looked at each other. Jake used some inappropriate language. I agreed. It was already a challenge to beat Zenguh, we didn’t need more Yeerks to complicate things.

Tom separated the large group into two smaller groups, and each Controller was given a Dracon beam.

“Two bug fighters will dock to this building any minute,” he yelled over the excited army. “Let’s get moving!”

A Controller, maybe in his thirties, raised his hand and asked, “If it’s just down the street, why do we need bug fighters? It’s such a nice day, we could just walk!”

Tom brought his hand to his forehead and rubbed his temples. Then he raised his Dracon beam at the man, and shot him dead.

“He’s got a good point though,” said Tom. “Let’s make it worth our while. Someone tell the Hork-Bajir to get ready. I think they’re playing pool downstairs.”

We didn’t know the location, but we had the Yeerks to follow. We quickly exited the building and went into our bird morphs, keeping an eye on the Yeerk teams before they disappeared under the usual holographic invisibility. And, as usual, we could follow with our superior bird eyes.

There was still no sign of Rachel and Cassie.

<If we were going to get into a fight, I sure would like for there to be more than two of us,> I mentioned to Jake as we flapped through the sky.

<No kidding,> he said. 

He seemed distracted. I had noticed lately that the war was really taking a toll on my good buddy Jake. I would never question his leadership, but I still hoped I could truly get my best friend back one day.

We watched the bug fighters land, still cloaked, and extend an image to cover the alleyway behind what looked like a deli warehouse. To the average person, the alley would look completely abandoned, rather than hosting fifty armed alien-infested humans and Hork-Bajir, and two large spaceships. 

Jake and I had barely demorphed before we heard the clear, unmistakable sound of an elephant trumpet from inside the building. The group of Controllers stopped talking and turned to the building. There was an eerie silence as the Yeerks put the pieces together and planned their next move. 

We watched the points of the blasters on the bug fighters glow red, and the beams sliced through the air toward the building.


	21. Tobias

We said goodbye to Erek. We were clearly headed for another battle.

Ax morphed Northern Harrier, and we flew away from his scoop. We were heading toward a Honey Glazed Hams store near the Community Center, as mentioned in Zenguh’s coded message. It was a bit further from Ax’s scoop than most places in town, so we took the opportunity as we flew to talk about what we found on Zenguh’s computer.

<So, what do we know now, Ax?> I asked. <How do we use this to gain an advantage?>

<He wants to absorb all humans into himself,> he replied. <He started doing it to disguise himself and escape from the other Yeerks, but he found the acquisition of human knowledge to be addicting.>

<So, everyone he infests, he gets all of their knowledge,> I said. <He could get pretty smart, pretty fast.>

<Agreed,> said Ax. <Also, I knew there were an astronomical number of humans on this planet. It had not occurred to me, until reading his journal, how much faster humans’ birth rate is than their death rate. It would make it impossible for him to absorb them all, especially since he has to wait two hours before he can again acquire his Yeerk form.>

<Yeah!> I said. <He knows he can’t get us all, so he’s going after people with a lot of diverse knowledge. Mathematicians, computer scientists, college professors; he’s even taken a couple of people from Marco’s dad’s Z-Space lab.>

<Prince Jake said that when he was being controlled by the Yeerk, long ago, he was able to talk to the Yeerk in his mind. Do you think that Zenguh has dozens of minds yelling at him simultaneously?>

<I would think so,> I said. <That would be really distracting. Maybe we can even use it against him somehow. Hey, did you understand his line, “I’ve heard of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences, but this is ridiculous?” I feel like he was trying to make a joke, but I didn’t get it.>

<Neither did I,> Ax responded. <It sounds like a human psychology reference, but I haven’t studied the subject very extensively.>

<Hey, Ax!> I stopped him. <Look at that! There’s smoke coming from over there!>

As we got closer, we saw the smoke was coming from the alleyway behind the Honey Glazed Ham shop. We also saw that the bottom half of the smoke would have been invisible, if not for my majestic hawk eyes. There were two bug fighters sitting there, also invisible, emitting some sort of cloaking field. 

We landed on a building overlooking the big, smoking hole in the wall, and immediately saw a wolf, an elephant, a gorilla, and a tiger inside, along with plenty of Hork-Bajir, and a ring of humans chained to the wall. 

I heard car doors slam, and turned toward the sound. A long black limo had pulled up, and we watched Visser One climb out, demorphing from his human disguise to his Andalite body. 

<Let’s go,> I said.

Ax demorphed to his Andalite form, and I morphed into a Hork-Bajir by the name of Ket Halpak. Hopefully, my teammates would recognize me and not attack. Ax moved across the roof, looking for a good opportunity to ambush Visser One. I dropped down to the ground, out of sight of the Yeerks, and ran into the hole.

The elephant and the wolf were laying on the ground inside, but were starting to stand up.

<Rachel, Cassie! Are you okay?>

Cassie answered first. <Yeah, I’ll be okay.>

<Me too,> said Rachel. <Just a little disoriented from the wall exploding. Let’s do this!>

<Good,> I said. <I’m going to cut these people free from the wall before they get hit by a stray Dracon beam!>

I walked through the crowd, toward the closest person chained to the wall. I didn’t join the fight. I wanted to blend in as a Controller as long as I could. I walked up to the first person chained to the wall. He was terrified. I sympathized. I was covered in blades after all. 

<Don’t worry. I’m here to help,> I told him. 

It didn’t calm him down. He screamed as I cut him free, and kept screaming as he ran out the door. 

I looked around, but there must have been enough commotion that none of the Yeerks noticed. I moved on to the next potential host, repeating my message. The next few were less scared after seeing me let the first man go. I worked my way around the room. Just a few more to go, but Visser One’s crew had not noticed me yet.

I cut down a woman, her eyes wet with tears of joy. 

“Thank you!” she cried, hugging me carefully. “I was a Controller, and my Yeerk starved out of me. I was so scared that I’d be free just long enough to be taken again!”

<Good luck!> I told her. <Now, run!>

She did.

I continued working, until finally, there was just one person left.

<Don’t worry. I’m here to help.>

His eyes grew wide in understanding. Once he was cut free, he pointed at me and yelled, “This one’s an Andalite!”

In seconds they were on me. Two Hork-Bajir, and a human with a Dracon beam, just waiting to get a clear shot. Arm blades flashed, and all I could hear was grunting and the sound of knife-like arms and legs flying through the air. I landed a lucky hit to a Hork-Bajir midsection that made him hesitate to rejoin the fight. The remaining one swung for my face, leaving a very shallow cut. As I was considering how much worse that could have been, his other arm blade struck my right forearm. It broke something, as I found I could no longer make a fist with that arm. But that was okay, I was leading with my blades.

I struck the Hork-Bajir’s head with the blunt part of my elbow, stunning him. I maneuvered him between myself and the Dracon-wielding human-Controller, using the Hork-Bajir as a shield. There was a look of uncertainty in the man’s eyes, but it didn’t last long. I kicked my Hork-Bajir shield at the human, and they fell to the floor in a tangle of arms, legs, and sharp edges. 

I turned my attention to the fight at large, to see who I could help. Rachel was surrounded, and had a lot of Dracon beam blast marks on her skin. I knew she couldn’t hide as an elephant, and even though she was clearly doing a lot of damage, I didn’t think she’d be able to last too much longer on her own.

I went after the human-Controllers training their Dracon beams on her. A quick slice disabled each weapon, and a quick punch to the face with my good hand took each Controller out of the fight long enough for Rachel to get some breathing room.

<You’re clear!> I yelled.

<Thanks!> she said, and went off to find another battle.

I did my own part, and jumped into a group of Controllers fighting against Jake and Cassie.

Then, the building started to shake.


	22. Rachel

I opened my eyes. The air was full of dust, and there was debris everywhere. I was bigger than I expected. Oh, right. I was still an elephant, and there had been an explosion. I looked around for Cassie. I wanted to stand up, but I didn’t want to step on her. 

It occurred to me that I had never seen an elephant lying down before, so I didn’t know how they would get to their feet. The intricacies of standing up lost importance when I saw Hork-Bajir and human-Controllers with Dracon beams running in through the smoking hole in the wall. I’d have to learn how to stand up in a hurry.

I saw the Yeerks pointing and shouting in my direction. I felt like a turtle trying to stand up. I got my feet under me, but I weighed so much. Every moment that this was taking was agony. Give me a break, gravity. I was almost to my feet, when I was hit in the forehead by a Dracon beam. It tickled. I guess they don’t shoot a lot of elephants with them. Still, it made me mad, and I felt the bloodlust swelling back up inside of me. 

This was going to be fun.

Then I remembered: Zenguh! 

_Where is he?_ I thought. 

I looked around and saw Zenguh, in the form of the frazzled blonde woman, hiding behind the boxes he had landed in earlier. 

<You’re not getting away!> I yelled. I punctuated the thought-speak with an elephant trumpet that made her fall over backwards. Just then, I was hit in the butt by another Dracon blast. It hurt more this time. They must be adjustable. I started trotting after Zenguh, but another blast hit me in the back of the leg. That did it. That was the straw that broke the…well, it was about to break all of their backs. 

I turned and charged at the Controller holding his weapon out. I grabbed him with my trunk and threw him. I didn’t expect him to leave a man-shaped hole in the wall. Very Looney Tunes. I let out another trumpet, but it came out in bursts because I was laughing. My mood was soured when I was shot again. Let’s see if I can do the same thing, but with the ceiling this time.

I wrapped my trunk around the most recent offending Controller, and threw him upward, toward the warehouse ceiling. It was a two story room, and I just didn’t have the force necessary to send him through the roof. I was starting to really hate gravity. However, when the Controller landed, I felt confident that he wasn’t going to shoot at me again. 

Right! Gotta catch Zenguh! I turned again, and saw that the room had filled with people. Human- Controllers, Hork-Bajir, and a tiger! And a gorilla! My friends were here! 

<You better not take out all the good ones!> I yelled happily.

<I wouldn’t dream of it!> Marco yelled back. <Go get ’em, Xena!>

I took a few more steps toward Zenguh, who was now creeping along the perimeter of the room, avoiding both the battle and the people chained to the walls. I noticed a Hork-Bajir cutting people down from their chains. If these Yeerks thought they were taking these people, and turning them into Controllers, they had another thing coming. It was going to have to wait, though. I put it on my mental to-do list.

Out of nowhere, a Hork-Bajir took a flying leap at me, trying to slice at my trunk. I moved it out of the way just in time, and charged him as he landed. I knocked him down, but two more of them jumped on me. I shook and shook, but they dug their sharp wrist blades into me, and hung on. I slammed one into the wall, and he let go. When I recovered my balance, I saw that I was surrounded by six human-Controllers with Dracon beams trained on me. 

“Andalite bandit! Demorph and surrender!” one yelled. 

I trumpeted, just in case they were dumb enough to think I was a real elephant. Unfortunately, this group was not. 

“I repeat: Demorph and surrender!” 

I didn’t think I could take them all out before they got a few hits in, and who knows how high these guys had their Dracon beams turned up? If they hurt me too bad, I’d have to demorph, and risk them seeing that I wasn’t an Andalite. 

<That’s Zenguh!> I pointed with my trunk at the frazzled blonde woman. <That’s who you’re here for! Help me stop him, and then we can talk about this.>

“Demorph!” he practically shrieked, ignoring me.

He wasn’t going to listen. I hung my head in a sign of defeat and compliance. I slowly bent my knees, just a little, to give the illusion of shrinking while I stalled for time. 

Suddenly, I heard the sounds of metal being torn apart, and saw a couple of wrecked Dracon beams clatter across the floor. 

I heard Tobias’s voice. <You’re clear!> he said.

I thanked him, and looked for Zenguh again. I saw him scrambling into the walk-in freezer. 

<Jake, he’s headed for the freezer!> I yelled. I knew he was somewhere in the room.

I laughed to myself and then called out to the Controller, <I thought you were supposed to be smart, Yeerk! You’re trapped in there until this fight ends, and no matter who wins, they’re gonna want you dead!>

He closed the door, pressed his face to the little porthole-style window in the door, and yelled something to me. I couldn’t quite make it out. I must have subconsciously moved an ear closer to him, because he yelled it again, and this time, I understood.

“I am smart!” 

He turned from the window, and I lost sight of him. Then, I lost sight of the entire walk-in freezer, as it turned invisible. The area where it had been started to rumble, and I saw chunks of the building that had been attached to it start to break off, rise a little, and then fall to the ground.

The walk-in freezer was invisible and…flying? Had he built his own spaceship?

Oh no. He’s getting away. He’s actually getting away again.

And he knows what I look like.


	23. Jake

This was not a fight we were expecting. This was supposed to be Animorphs versus Zenguh, not Animorphs versus Zenguh, a whole Yeerk army, and Visser One. Victory was getting out of reach really, really quickly.

I was glad to see Ax had somehow found us to join the fight. We needed him. I could only hope Tobias was around, too.

The ham shop was a mess. There was smoke and blood, shouting and screaming everywhere that I looked. I saw Marco slam his fist directly into the face of a Hork-Bajir. I saw Cassie, unsurprisingly in wolf morph, chomping down on the ankles of another Hork-Bajir. I dodged a few Dracon beams myself before tackling a human-Controller to the ground, knocking him out with a smack of my paw.

<Aaaahh!> someone yelled. I had no idea who it was.

This wasn’t a battle we could win. All we could do was endure. I wasn’t even sure what the goal was anymore. Chaos was everywhere.

I heard a shattering of glass behind me, and my eyes followed the sound. Ax was locked in one-on-one combat with Visser One. Andalite versus Andalite. His tailblade had just smacked through a window, then immediately struck again, missing Visser One’s neck by inches. It was tough to see them both through the clouds of dust and debris.

<Ax!> I yelled privately to him. <Ax, I’m coming!>

<Prince Jake,> he answered me, keeping all four eyes on his opponent. <I can handle this. Find Zenguh! Tobias and I read the contents of his computer. He must not escape!>

Right. Zenguh. Man, there was a lot going on.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a Hork-Bajir flying through the air toward me. I dodged, and realized that Rachel had used her elephant trunk to throw the alien completely across the room.

I looked back at the two Andalites, fighting on an upper level created entirely from empty crates. Visser One was bigger than Ax, but Ax was using his own smaller size for quick dodges. I’d have to remind Marco that this is why Flash would beat Hulk. Visser One lunged toward Ax, using his entire body as his tailblade whipped to the side toward Ax’s ribs. Ax countered with his own tailblade, and the ensuing clanging sound echoed above the rest of the mayhem.

Then I saw Ax use his experience on Earth in a way that made me strangely proud. He pinned Visser One’s blade down with his own, and punched the leader of the Yeerk invasion right in the middle of his face with a many-fingered fist. Andalite punches weren’t common. I roared in approval.

<Ha-HA!> Marco crowed from not far away. <Nicely done, Ax! I knew that watching those Indiana Jones movies with you was worth it! >

<Fools!> the visser roared at nobody in particular, clutching his face. He began to swing wildly with his tail, but Ax leapt nimbly off of the pile of crates.

<Jake! He’s headed for the freezer!> I heard Rachel say.

Zenguh. I again turned my attention, this time to search for the massive elephant in the room. It wasn’t very difficult. I broke out into a run, but quickly stopped in my tracks. I saw the freezer. It was shaking violently before it disappeared entirely. Broken bricks and concrete rose up into the air before falling back to the ground, and the clear rumbling sound of some sort of engine filled the room. A huge hole exploded in the ceiling, and the engine sound faded over the next few minutes.

I looked around. A lot of the fighting had kind of...stopped. Controllers and Animorphs were mostly looking upward at whatever had just left the building. A quietness settled over the room, and I wasn’t sure what the next move should be. In the lingering silence, we heard the distant sound of police sirens.

<Fools,> Visser One addressed us again, fury in his thought-speak voice. <You have allowed that creature to escape. You will pay for this, the next time we meet.>

With that, the Controllers left in a hurry. 

We were still alive.

* * *

“That is quite a tale,” Toby said to the group.

We were all sitting around a campfire in the temporary Hork-Bajir valley. It was a short-term refuge while the free colony fixed their homes after a recent planned flood during a Yeerk attack had wiped out much of what they had previously built. Once the Controllers had left the Honey Glazed Ham store, we had quickly morphed birds and bailed.

Toby had joined us around the campfire, and we had told her everything we knew about the current situation. Now the group was pretty quiet. It was hard to get a read on any of them.

“Well, I guess he’s gone,” Cassie said quietly, supplying the first words in quite a while.

No one knew what to say. Or so I thought.

“Yeah, Cassie,” Rachel replied, her voice trembling. “And I had him. I HAD the creep. I could have ended it right there!”

“Rachel, listen...” Cassie began.

“No, YOU listen, Cassie,” Rachel yelled, fully turning to her. “You’re my best friend. How could you do that? That’s three times now I could have ended it. That might have been my last chance! I don’t have time for all these morals. We’re trying to win a war here!”

<I have to agree with some of Rachel’s sentiment,> Ax interjected.

<Not now, Ax,> Tobias said.

“Rachel, I can’t let you kill whenever you want to,” Cassie said. “Someone has to save you from…” She trailed off.

“From what, Cassie?” Rachel asked, her voice rising.

Cassie hesitated before answering, “From yourself, Rachel. I don’t like where this war is taking you.”

“Oh, get off your high horse,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes. “Zenguh is too big a threat for us to be held back by weakness.”

“That’s not very fair,” I said. “You know Cassie helps to keep us from going over the line.”

I looked at Cassie. “I know she helps me,” I added.

“Bad idea, Jake,” Marcos whispered from my left.

Rachel rounded on me, eyes flashing. “You!” she said, fuming. “I couldn’t get to Zenguh to keep him out of that freezer. Where were you? Why didn’t you help me? What was the big, master plan that our great leader had for that fight, huh?”

Now it was my turn to get angry. “Rachel,” I started. “We didn’t expect to be in that position, and you know it. We were all entirely separated, and it was a miracle we even ended up together at that ham shop in the first place.”

“Yeah,” Rachel said, not backing down. “There was no plan. I know. And he got away. Maybe for good. Just like he got away when I didn’t finish him off at the park because you were too busy getting your butt kicked.”

<Ouch,> Tobias commented.

Rachel began to walk away.

<Rachel!> Tobias said, <We need to stick together right now. Figure things out.>

“I can’t right now, Tobias,” she said, without looking back. “Sometimes I wonder if I’d be better off fighting this war by myself. Or getting help elsewhere.”

I didn’t know what that meant.

“Let her go,” Toby advised. “She needs a chance to calm down.”

The campfire crackled. Tobias fluttered up into some low-hanging branches. Ax pawed at the ground, and Cassie tried to compose herself. We were exhausted.

“Hey guys,” Marco said. “I mean, my family is here, but don’t you all need to get home? It’s been a really, really long day.”


	24. Cassie

The final bell of the day rang, and I let out a sigh. It was partly a sigh of relief at the school day being over, and partly from nerves because I was going to talk to Rachel. She had been acting angry and distracted for a few days, and had been avoiding the rest of us as much as she could. I found her at her locker, packing her bag as fast as possible. She sighed when she saw me. 

“How’s it going, Cassie?” she asked, forcing the words out.

“I’m fine,” I said. “But I’m worried about you.”

“Can we not do this here?” she asked, sounding tired.

“I was gonna walk home,” I said. “Walk with me?”

We walked out of the school and down the road, not speaking for an uncomfortable few blocks. 

I broke the silence. “Rachel, I know we’re probably going to have to kill this guy in the end,” I said, quietly enough for her to hear, but not to be overheard. “I stopped you not just because it scares me to kill, but because it’s so irreversible. If we have a chance to save the people he’s absorbed, we owe it to them to try.”

Rachel was taken off guard. I think she was expecting a yelling match, but my admission had taken the wind from her sails. 

“Cassie, he’s trying to absorb everyone on Earth,” she said. “Everyone he absorbs is getting condemned to a fate worse than death. I can’t imagine anything worse than being conscious, but unable to control myself, possibly forever! Everyone inside of him doesn’t have to eat or sleep because they’re in Z-space. Maybe they don’t even age. It’s potentially forever!”

“When you put it that way,” I said. “Killing them all does seem a little less cruel than allowing more people to get stuck that way. I still hate it though.”

She nodded and said, “If we didn’t kill him, what would our next move be? He’s morph-capable, so he’d be hard to hold onto. We don’t know if the Andalites are even going to come to Earth, so we can’t count on them helping us. Is he even on this planet anymore? What’s his goal now?”

I cringed internally as I told her, “He’s not on Earth anymore. The Chee told us that they observed his ship leaving the atmosphere. You haven’t been super easy to talk to the last few days, or I would have told you.”

She groaned, then said, “Okay. If we ever see him again, how would we free all the people stuck inside him?”

I hadn’t really thought about that before. I thought for a minute, and answered her. “The only thing I can think of is to convince him to let them all go.”

Hearing myself say it aloud, I added, “Though, that seems like a really hard sell.”

“It does,” Rachel said. “And even if he did, they’d all be trapped as Yeerks.”

“There are some Yeerks who don’t agree with what the rest are doing” I said. “Like the Yeerk Peace Movement. After what these human-turned-Yeerks have been through, they’d be more likely to be on our side.”

“We’d still have to put them in someone’s head for them to have any impact on the resistance,” she said. “Unless we put them in horses, like when we were looking into Zone 91 a long time ago.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t like that idea or hate it. It’s just its own category of weird. It also just occurred to me that if he releases them, we’re going to have up to three days to…Never mind, they’d still need to go to the Yeerk pool as horses. 

I sighed. We walked in silence for a few moments.

“Okay,” I admitted. “I think we’re out of options for saving them.”

“Speaking of options,” Rachel said. “I had a dream the other night. I was walking along the beach as the sun started to set. Tobias flew down to join me.”

“That sounds nice,” I said.

“I talked to Crayak, Cassie,” she said suddenly, catching me off guard. “He offered me power again. He still wants me to kill Jake, and I’m not going to, of course, but he brought up how Zenguh keeps getting away, and it really bothered me. I felt like…like I have all this power as an Animorph, more than normal people would dream of having, and it’s still not enough. I really want to save the world, and now in addition to the Yeerks trying to enslave the world, we’ve got someone else that’s threatening to absorb it. It’s just overwhelming!”

“I know how you feel, Rachel,” I told her. “I’ve got all the same enemies that you do, and I have to deal with these feelings that we can work things out with them without getting violent.”

<That’s gotta be tough,> Rachel said, not moving her mouth.

“Did you just thought-speak?” I asked. “Are you in Rachel morph again? I haven’t seen you use it since our fight in the ham shop, where you kept re-healing with it. I never even thought about you getting your own DNA from my set of morphs when you acquired me.”

<Yeah,> she said. <It’s kind of a nervous habit now.>

“I think I’d be too scared to do it,” I said. “I’d be worried that I’d accidentally get stuck in morph as myself and be unable to morph anymore.”

Rachel froze and her eyes grew wide. Then she started breathing hard, and sat down on the curb.

I sat by Rachel as she worked through her panic attack for a few more minutes, and then Tobias flew by and circled overhead. 

<Hey guys!> he said. <Erek says that the Yeerks have got a new scheme going. Anyone wanna crash a Sharing meeting?>

* * *

Later that night, I told my parents that I was going to a study group with Rachel. I left the house, and met up with the rest of the Animorphs on the roof of the Community Center. We morphed to sneak into the building. Jake was a squirrel, Marco and Ax were mice, Rachel and I were rats, and Tobias was a raccoon. We were an odd looking bunch, but no one was going to see us together.

<Too cool to be a rodent like the rest of us, Tobias?> asked Marco.

<Rodents are food,> Tobias replied, with a quickness that implied that it wasn’t even banter. <Present company excluded, of course.>

We moved through the ventilation system until Jake asked, <Does anyone else smell that?>

It took me a while to notice, as I was expecting something disgusting, but then I smelled it. 

<Is that chlorine? Do they really have a pool?> I asked. <I mean, of course they have that one, but, like, they have a swimming pool?>

We made our way toward the smell, and crawled out into the rafters above a large room with a gigantic pool in it. The room was elaborately decorated with streamers, banners, and gold painted accents.

<Do you think this is it? Their scheme?> Jake asked us. <A swim meet doesn’t really seem all that nefarious.>

<Nefarious?> asked Marco. <Someone’s been getting a jump on his SAT studying!>

<Hold on,> said Tobias. <I think I see something in the water, but these raccoon eyes are garbage.>

He morphed back into his hawk form and squinted at the pool. He flew down to the water’s edge, and began to morph again. 

<I need to check it out closer,> he said.

<Are you turning into a Nar…bus? Narduck? What were they called again? The Atlantis people?> Marco asked.

<Nartec,> Tobias corrected. <I hate the water, but these guys love it, so it should at least balance me out. Plus, since they can breathe air too, I won’t be stuck in the water if someone walks in and sees me.>

He slid into the water, and swam up to a dark spot next to a pool light. He poked at it a bit, then laughed. Thought-speak laughter sounds strange, especially from a boy with increasingly fewer emotions. We crawled down some streamers, down to the floor for a better view.

<What do you see?> I asked.

Tobias answered, his tone incredulous, <There are these little underwater doors all around the pool, about the size for a Yeerk to swim through. I think they’re going to have a swim meet, and infest the swimmers while they’re in the water.>

<That’s even dumber than putting Yeerks into cell phones,> said Rachel.

Just then, I heard the click of the door opening.


	25. Ax

This was a strange mission.

After the high-stakes of fighting Zenguh, dealing with a local swimming race did not seem impressive. Still though, the war with the Yeerks continues, even when it is less glamorous. Besides, Zenguh could be anywhere in the universe. All we knew from the Chee was that he was off-world.

However, our current stakeout had been interrupted by the door opening.

“Look, I’m just checking,” a voice mumbled, as we scattered in the dark pool room to hide anywhere we could.

“What could possibly go wrong with this plan?” another voice asked.

Just then, I saw Jake’s brother, Tom, walk by the trash can I was hiding behind. I began to wonder if Tom had other living arrangements besides Jake’s house, because he seemed to be present at the Community Center quite often.

“I think that this plan is ridiculous,” Tom muttered. “But of course, we wouldn’t want to question the orders of Visser One,” He said that last part quite sarcastically, for a Yeerk, doing something that I believe humans refer to as ‘jazz hands’.

There was a sudden splashing sound. Tom whirled around to look at the pool.

“Quit playing around!” he said angrily, peering through the dark. There was no response.

<Guys,> Tobias said to us. <This Controller was really close to spotting me. I knocked him out but now I can’t go underwater without drowning the dude. I’m just holding him here like an idiot.>

<Ax,> Jake said heavily. <Can you provide us a distraction?>

I demorphed, knocking over the trash can as I did. It made a loud noise in the cavernous room.

Tom and the other Controller spun around.

“Andalite!” Tom yelled.

I sighed. <Yes,> I responded. <Andalite.>

I simultaneously knocked out Tom with the flat of my blade, and kicked the other Controller with my back legs. He flew into the pool. Tobias dragged both Controllers through the water and heaved them up onto the side, out of the pool. 

<Ax, is Tom out cold?> Jake asked.

I looked at Tom. <He is unconscious,> I answered. <But he never fell in the pool, so I do not believe that his body temperature has been affected.>

<Guys? I didn’t see this chance coming,> Jake said, sounding like he was trying to suppress his excitement. <When’s the next time Tom will be this vulnerable? I’m going to try and drag him out of here. Marco? A little help?>

<Ohh,> said Marco. <By ‘ _I’m_ going to try’, you meant ‘ _Marco’s_ going to try.’ Cool.>

A tiger and a gorilla flanked Tom. Marco picked him up, and the three of them made their way over to the pool entrance. Before they could get there, the door exploded open, and a Hork-Bajir flew through the opening.

Through the doorway came a large creature that looked very much like the Earth version of an octopus, but with many more tentacles. Its head looked similar to that of a shark, but slightly off. The looks on my friends’ faces told me that this creature was not from this planet.

<What is this, a sharktopus?> Marco wondered. <Hm, that’s actually a good idea for a movie.>

The creature stopped for a moment in the doorway, surveying the room. We all froze. It was of course Visser One in morph, and he was focused on the Hork-Bajir, feebly crawling away from his most recent mutant morph from another planet.

Suddenly, his attention was drawn to myself, attempting to back away slowly.

<Could it be?> came Visser One’s voice. <The Andalite bandits? You all sought me out? I feel flattered.>

He picked up the Hork-Bajir, and just as quickly threw him violently down on the ground.

<I was coming to teach my advisor here a very personal lesson about idiotic plans, this ridiculous swim meet being the last straw,> Visser One explained for some reason. <Do you know how much it cost to put in Yeerk-sized tubes that go all the way to the pool? We had to get a special contractor, and permits, and it was a whole big mess,>

He smiled a big, toothy smile. <But this is a wonderful coincidence. I’d much rather teach a lesson to all of you.>

Then he spotted Tobias in the pool.

<Interesting,> he mused. <You acquired one of those human mutants from under the ocean. Let’s see how you taste.>

Visser One’s “sharktopus” body leapt into the pool, causing a considerable wave of water to slam over the edges. I needed to come to Tobias’ aid, but felt restricted by my morph selection for a water environment.

Suddenly I had an idea.

<With your permission, Prince Jake,> I said. <I would like to jump in to help Tobias.>

<By all means, man,> Jake answered, sounding flustered. <We’re a little busy over here!>

I looked over with my stalk eyes as I made my way to the swimming pool. A group of blue band Hork-Bajir-Controllers, Visser One’s top bodyguards, had entered the room behind the visser. Jake had left Tom on a bench next to the wall in order to fight more effectively. I saw a wolf and a cheetah, Cassie and Rachel, emerge from the shadows. They would be fine, but I needed to get to Tobias.

I jumped.

Once in the pool, I stayed upright in the water by churning my legs as I focused on a morph I thought could help. Visser One’s morph was large, but I had one that was even bigger.

I watched as Tobias, in Nartec morph, swiftly cut through the water, dodging bites and grabs by the visser’s tentacles.

<Stay still!> Visser One bellowed.

<Ax-man,> Tobias called out. <He can’t really grab me in here. Feels like being a bird in the air. But I have no natural weapons! Ideas? Oh.>

That last “oh” was Tobias’ realization of my morph. I was hard to miss, because a giant squid takes up a considerable portion of a human swimming pool, even a large one.

<Ax! Tobias!> Cassie said. <There’s too many of them, we’re heading out! Jake had to leave Tom!>

<I’m crawling out,> Tobias reported to me, calmly considering the circumstances. <How can I help?>

I wrapped three long tentacles of my own around the visser; two pinning his octopus tentacles together, one restricting his jaw full of razor-sharp teeth. Visser One struggled briefly before I threw him, with all the power a giant squid could generate, completely out of the pool and into the rafters, slamming his shark head into the high bars. 

<Aww! I’m jealous!> said Rachel.

<I think I’m okay, Tobias,> I answered.

<Nice one!> Tobias said. <You know, this feels like old times. Animorphs versus Yeerks. Maybe it’s good that Zenguh disappeared. This feels more right.>

This battle was another stalemate. As Marco liked to say, Tobias and I then “bailed.”


	26. Rachel

A week after the swimming pool incident, I was pacing in my bedroom. I was bored, and I was mad, and I was disappointed. Dumb Zenguh had flown off the dumb planet in his dumb spaceship, and it was killing me how helpless I was to do anything now. I didn’t even want to go out and take my mind off things, because nothing sounded fun. Nothing we could do would help us stop this guy. Every day that went by, I just knew he was getting smarter, stronger, and harder to beat. 

And all we could do was wait, assuming he came back at all.

As if that wasn’t enough stress, I was terrified that every time I thought about myself, I would be accidentally turning into my Rachel morph. The change was so subtle that I would barely feel it when it happened. The only ways I could think of to test if I was in morph were to either thought-speak and wait for confirmation that someone had heard it, or else try to morph into something else.

I didn’t know all the intricacies of how morphing worked. As useful as it could be to get all of Cassie’s morphs, it couldn’t be worth all of this stress and fear. 

I hated to admit it, but I needed help. I couldn’t do this on my own, and I wasn’t even confident that my friends would be enough help. I knew what the price would be, but did I even have a choice? I walked out of my house and into the lawn. 

Should I? Could I? I had to, right?

“Crayak!” I yelled, as loud as I could. A kid riding by on his bike looked at me like I was crazy. So did a neighbor raking her lawn. I should have looked around first. Oh well.

“Crayak!” I yelled again. The kid on the bike froze in place, as did the leaves blowing in the wind, and the neighbor raking them. A wall of flame swept across the neighborhood, until everything on the other side of the street was Crayak’s horrible blazing eye. 

“You could have just asked for me,” Crayak boomed, sounding amused. “But I’m glad you didn’t. I enjoyed watching you yell my name into the sky. Your neighbors think you’re crazy now. They’re fine, by the way, all this flame is just theatrics. If I destroyed your neighborhood this…inelegantly, I’d never hear the end of it from that ridiculous Ellimist.”

I blushed and scowled at the same time. “I don’t know how you work! I don’t exactly have your phone number!” I said, frustrated. “So, what, then, you’re always watching me?”

“What an ego!” Crayak laughed. “I can see the strands of time itself. I knew you’d be willing to talk right now. Your importance to me is confined to your ability to kill Jake. Have you changed your mind about that?”

“I need your help,” I confessed. 

“Oh? Whatever could the mighty Rachel need with my help?” Crayak asked smugly.

“I need to save the world,” I started. “This Zenguh guy is getting stronger every minute, and I need to stop him.”

“Why do you need to stop him?” asked Crayak. “He’s the galaxy’s problem now. All things considered, this is a win for us both.”

“Us both?” I asked. “How does this help you?”

“For someone with as much power as myself, there isn’t much excitement in the pursuit of goals,” he rumbled. “If I want something, I just have it. Poof!”

As he said it, there was a puff of smoke next to me. It startled me, and I jumped.

“The fun, Rachel, is in the story,” he continued. “I could wipe out the humans and the Yeerks with a mere thought, but then I would be bored. Imagine watching a scary movie. You yell at the screen, ‘Don’t go in there!’, so the character doesn’t, and the film ends. The characters survive, but you leave the theater unfulfilled.”

I understood where Crayak was coming from. Should I feel bad about relating to this force of evil?

The giant burning eye sank down, like an adult kneeling down to explain something to a child. “Watching your war is interesting,” he said. “Watching Zenguh absorb and destroy life across the galaxy is interesting, but I suppose that would have the opposite effect on you. I think it would eat away at you. That’s another win for me.”

I hated this. I couldn’t let that monster of a Yeerk loose on the galaxy when I could have stopped him.

Crayak spoke again, and I could hear the terrible grin in his voice. “Would you like to see what he’s doing?”

I hadn’t considered that Crayak could show me that. I really didn’t want to see the awful things that Zenguh was doing, but I couldn’t say no to any information that might help me stop him.

All I could say to Crayak was, “Okay.”

My surroundings were replaced with alien landscape after alien landscape, and I saw Zenguh enslave beings of all shapes and sizes in a wicked montage. I saw villages burning and dead bodies littering the ground. 

“Stop!” I screamed. I was back in my yard, looking into Crayak’s giant eye. “This is too much! What do I have to do to stop him?”

Crayak laughed, and the ground shook beneath my feet. I fell to my knees.

“There. That’s a much better pose for _groveling_ ,” he said.

“Okay!” I screamed. “I’ll do it! I’ll kill Jake! Just let me stop Zenguh!”

The ground stilled, and Crayak spoke again, calmly. “Oh Rachel. I told you before, I can see the threads of time. In almost every timeline that I can see, you don’t kill Jake. In fact, in most of those timelines, you tell me that you’ll kill Jake, and then you betray me. So, no, Rachel, I don’t think I’ll believe you this time.”

The eye grew larger and burned even more intensely, as he continued.

“There is, however, something else you can do for me. I want to show you what a good team you and I can be. I need you, Rachel, to be the one to kill Zenguh. If you resolve yourself to do everything in your power to be the one who deals the killing blow, I will bring him back to Earth for you.”

This was my chance! I had been willing to kill him before he left Earth, hadn’t I?

The flames surrounded me, and all that remained was that booming voice.

“Do we have a deal?”


	27. Marco

As I approached the barn for another meeting, I heard voices coming from inside. I stood outside the barn door, not wanting to interrupt.

“Cassie, why is there an anteater in my barn?” I heard the voice of Cassie’s dad. He sounded confused.

“Dad, you asked me to take care of the ant problem,” I heard Cassie’s voice answer. “You didn’t say how, and I told you I’d take care of it.”

What, was Cassie renting anteaters now?

“Okay,” Cassie’s dad said, sounding weirded out. “But we have ant poison in the shed…Anyway, your mom and I need to head out to The Gardens. We will be back tonight.”

I heard footsteps walking away, and shortly after that, the sound of her dad’s truck driving off in the distance. Made me think of the time I borrowed Cassie’s dad’s old truck. Unfortunately, he never got it back.

I walked inside. There was Cassie, crouched over an anteater.

“Cassie?” I asked. “Where’s everybody else? I guess maybe I’m early?”

I watched as Cassie’s skin lightened, and her hair grew longer and brighter. Suddenly I was looking at Rachel. Her morphing outfit had seamlessly transitioned from Cassie’s to her own. I don’t know how clothes work with the morphing power. Clothing doesn’t have DNA, but I had a headache thinking about it. I decided not to.

“What?” was all I could ask.

<Hey, Marco,> the anteater said, and I now realized it was Cassie. <I’m down here.>

“Just trying to do a normal thing, Marco, okay?” Rachel said, sounding defensive and a tad jumpy. “Cassie had a problem with ants, I thought I’d help her without raising suspicion with her parents. Is that alright with you?”

She stepped toward me and I fake surrendered, putting my hands up to diffuse the situation. I didn’t need Xena mad at me right now. I wasn’t going to poke holes in their overly complicated plan.

Just then, Tobias flew in through the barn window, and I heard Ax clip-clopping his way into the back barn entrance. Then Jake walked in, and oh goodie, we could start talking about Zenguh again.

I could tell we were all restless. Well, at least the rest of the group was restless. I had my family back, which made things a bit more cheerful for me. Hey, if Zenguh came back and destroyed the world, at least I’d die with my family. Gotta look at the bright side.

Everyone else was a bit standoffish. Jake looked tired and Rachel looked worried. I don’t know about Ax and Tobias. Andalites and hawks are tough to read emotionally. And Cassie was an anteater, still digging through the walls looking for ants.

<Do we have any plan of attack, Prince Jake?> Ax asked, looking at him with all four eyes, and not questioning Cassie’s morph choice.

Jake sighed and focused on Ax. “I don’t know, Ax, I don’t know how we can contend with space flight. I suppose we’ve stolen a ship here or there in the past, but we wouldn’t even be able to find the guy. Should we just...leave it alone?>

“No,” Rachel said, her head snapping up. “There’s got to be a way to bring this guy down.”

Well, Rachel didn’t specifically use the word “guy,” but I didn’t feel I should repeat her language.

<I agree with Rachel,> Tobias said from the rafters. <But I don’t have a plan, either.>

Rachel stood up and kicked a metal bucket. It crashed hard against the barn wall.

“This is so FRUSTRATING!” she yelled. “We need to go kick Yeerk butt for real, but all you guys want to do is wait around in hopes that Zenguh will come find US?!”

And right then, distracting all of us, a tiny toy-looking ship flew in through the window, zipping right past Tobias.

“No,” I said in awe, staring at the ship. “Just, no.”

We knew this ship. It was the Helmacrons. A tiny race of annoying aliens that we thought were long gone, for good.

<Greetings again, puny humans!> came a grating voice from the ship. <We have returned, and we are more powerful than you can possibly imagine! We are like gods to you now!>

<Yes! Grovel before us, underlings, or be annihilated! Witness our power!> came another tiny voice from the ship.

With that, a small opening on the side of the ship widened, and inside we could see a glowing blue light.

<Is that...is that the shard?!> Tobias asked. <No way!>

<Yes, slaves, this a piece of the blue energy device, and it is in our possession at last! The previous undeserving owner had no chance against us, so we stole the technology from him!>

THWACK!

Ax’s tail, fast as lightning, sliced the Helmacron ship in half, longwise. It fell to the floor.

<Apologies for acting without orders, Prince Jake,> Ax said, not sounding remorseful at all. <But these Helmacrons are not something I want to deal with, currently.>

Now I had an idea, a rather convenient idea, given Cassie’s current morph choice.

“Cassie!” I laughed. “Finish these guys off!”

<No problem! That I can handle!> Cassie yelled, still thankfully an anteater. 

As I watched her inexplicably demorph, she added, <I have the perfect morph!>

Cassie went wolf. Cassie always goes wolf. She nearly dove into the wreckage of the Helmacron ship when Jake stopped her.

“Guys, our problem last time was keeping track of these guys,” he explained calmly. He then began morphing to...Howler? 

“I don’t know about you,” he added, looking over at Rachel. “But I could take out some frustration on these Helmacrons. And the heat vision of the Howler will make sure we get every last one of them.”

<Fools!> the Helmacrons cried.

We attacked.

I grabbed a shovel and slammed it repeatedly, flat side down, onto the ground as hard as I could. As I smacked what I hoped were scattering Helmacrons, I morphed gorilla to gain more power behind my swings. Next, Rachel grabbed the ship roughly off the ground and smashed it into the wall, harder and harder until it broke apart like a Lego set that I used to own. Ax used his tail for precision strikes into the miniature Helmacrons, under the specific direction of Jake and Tobias, whose current eyes were far better than any of ours. Cassie watched, growling her wolfy growl.

We were yelling quite a bit. The barn was loud. Weeks of pent-up anger at Zenguh was being one-hundred percent directed at these meddlesome Helmacrons.

In less than five minutes, we had destroyed the ship to scrap, and no Helmacrons had escaped as far as we could tell. They would surely be yelling their overlord nonsense at us, if there were any left. It was by far our quickest defeat of the tiny alien race. Cassie grabbed the morphing shard with her teeth, pulling it from the rubble of the ship.

We sat in silence, demorphed and panting, thinking back on what we had just done. Somehow, we weren’t that torn up about it.

An hour or so passed as we threw around half-baked ideas about what we could do next. We were even laughing together again. The atmosphere felt more relaxed. That had been a very satisfying way of working out our stress.


	28. Tobias

We celebrated our pair of simultaneous victories. We were relieved that Zenguh had lost the shard, and that we would hopefully never have to worry about the Helmacrons anymore. Without the shard, Zenguh couldn’t give his outermost host the ability to morph, which meant he wouldn’t be able to absorb any more people or other beings into himself. 

We were even entertaining the idea that the Helmacrons had killed him somehow, even if it didn’t seem likely. What did seem likely, however, was that if Zenguh was still alive, he would come looking for the shard. 

Speaking of the shard, Ax had managed to reattach it to the rest of the morphing cube. Once it was whole again, he gave it back to Cassie, and she did whatever she usually does to hide it. 

A few days later, I was hanging out with Ax at his scoop, and Marco was staying the night in the Hork-Bajir valley. We had just finished watching the latest Bond movie on his TV, when Ax looked up at the sky and stretched.

<Tobias, it is time for me to perform my nightly rituals,> he said.

I didn’t know if that was a euphemism for going to the bathroom, or if he really had rituals to perform, but I always gave him his privacy. I waited in a tree for Ax to return, and I felt myself getting sleepy. The recent roller coaster of stress had really drained me emotionally. I would have morphed to my other hawk form to stay awake, but morphing only rejuvenated my physical body, not my mental state.

A rustling sound snapped me out of my sleep. 

<Hey Ax! How were the rituals?> I thought-spoke to him. 

There was no reply. The noise continued from Ax’s scoop, but I couldn’t see anything from this angle, especially in the dark. It was probably another raccoon. I had seen a raccoon at Ax’s scoop every night this week, probably after that variety pack of potato chips he had picked up. 

I fluttered to another tree to get a better view. I still couldn’t make it out, but whatever it was, it was too big to be a raccoon. I squinted against the dark, and decided to try something that usually worked.

<Aaaaaaaaaa!> I screamed at the thing in thought-speak.

It shot up and out of Ax’s scoop like a rocket, and flew past me. It was big, and had too many wings for me to count quickly as I dove to get out of the way. I didn’t need to analyze this thing for long to know that it wasn’t from around here. It had to be a _kafit_ bird, a creature that had been burned into my memory when Visser Three had chased us through the city as one, almost killing Ax. 

A _kafit_ being here meant that either Ax was playing a prank on me, or that Zenguh was back, he had found us, and had been to the Andalite homeworld.

It looped through the air, head swiveling in every direction, looking for me. I landed in a tree and shrunk back, hoping to blend in with the trunk. It didn’t work. The _kafit_ locked eyes with me, then came to hover between me and the scoop. 

<I’ve found you, _nothlit_ ,> the _kafit_ said. It snapped its long, razor-sharp beak, and asked, <Where is my shard?>

<We don’t have it! The Helmacrons do!> I said, panicking. I realized only too late that I had just given away that I was no ordinary hawk and that we had seen the Helmacrons and the cube. At least I knew that this was Zenguh now.

<A disappointing answer,> Zenguh said. <After I kill you, I shall have to see if your friends have the same response.>

I couldn’t fight this thing. I had to get out of here and lose it for long enough to decide on a better morph for this fight. I dove from the tree, and flapped so hard I thought my wings would fall off. My quick exit had earned me a nice head start, but I didn’t think it would last long. I darted through the trees, knowing I couldn’t beat Zenguh in a race in the open air above the trees. I remembered how maneuverable Visser One had made the _kafit_ look when he chased us as one.

<I _will_ catch you, Tobias,> came Zenguh’s voice. <And then I’ll go back for Ax.>

This was too much. <How do you know our names?> I called back, still flying for my life.

<I’ve been watching you all week, of course,> he laughed, and it was haunting. 

I connected the dots. The raccoon at Ax’s scoop the past few nights had been him all along!

<I’ve found out that you don’t keep the morphing technology in that scoop,> he said. <I’ve also seen that you never revert to Andalite form, which shows me that you foolishly got stuck in the body of a primitive Earth bird. But I’ll find the rest of the scoops you Andalite bandits use and check them for the shard too, _nothlit_. Unless it’s with your human friend, Rachel.>

My heart skipped a beat and my mind raced. My giant list of reasons to take this guy down had just gotten even longer. Suddenly, I had an idea; a way to kill two birds with one stone. 

I hated that saying.

I veered off to my left, toward a meadow occupied by someone else I couldn’t stand. When I got close, I let loose with a mighty...

“TSEEEEEER!”

Defending his territory, the rival hawk from this meadow left his tree and flew at me, talons outstretched. I dove into a bush, landing less than gracefully, both avoiding his attack and hopefully losing Zenguh. I righted myself, and poked my head out of the bush just in time to see the _kafit_ bird spear the other hawk and throw him to the ground. The hawk struggled on its back, unable to right itself or fly. 

A wave of guilt rolled over me. I had done something cruel, but I might still be able to save the bird’s life. I left the bush quietly, on the far side, and began to change to the morph that I thought had the best chance of defeating a bird from the Andalite homeworld: an Andalite. My buddy Ax, specifically. 

As I grew taller, my head rose over the bush and I could see that Zenguh was growing too. And he kept growing, even as my morphing came to an end. He grew into a truly enormous beast with a giant mouth and huge three-fingered hands. 

The wave of guilt was quickly replaced by fear. I couldn’t fight something like that on my own. I called out to Ax in targeted thought-speak, but heard no reply.

The beast loomed over the injured hawk. It reached down and picked up the thrashing bird, holding it close to its mouth.

<This is your last chance!> Zenguh yelled to the bird, but broadcasting his thought-speak around the area in anger. <Give me the shard!>

The bird was, of course, unable to answer. It finally stopped struggling, and fell slack in the monster’s crushing grasp.

<Yes, of course I’m going to eat this hawk!> he said, shaking his head violently. <Holy mackerel, shut up!>

Who was he talking to? It couldn’t be the hawk, it looked dead.

He regained his composure. <One Andalite down,> he said. And with that, he put the hawk into his mouth, and ate it in one bite.

I galloped back to Ax’s place as fast as I could. He was there, searching for something new to watch on TV. He tilted his head in confusion when he saw me approach.

<Hello…me?> he said.

<Ax! Zenguh’s back!> I yelled. 

He jumped to his feet.

<We must tell Prince Jake at once,> Ax answered, grabbing the remote to turn off the television. One of his stalk eyes peeked over at me. <But perhaps after These Messages?>

<Those messages are going to have to wait, Ax-man,> I told him, and I explained the situation as I helped him quickly hide all of his stuff, fold down the roof of his scoop, and cover it in leaves. If I hadn’t just helped hide it, I would never believe that his scoop had even been here. With a little luck, Zenguh wouldn’t be able to find us either. 


	29. Jake

I stared at my history test, with a big ‘C’ written on the top of it. I used to care, at least somewhat, about my grades. Now I was just glad that the grade wasn’t so low that I had to waste time with a retake. I didn’t have the energy for that. And now that Zenguh was apparently back, I didn’t have time for it, either.

I let out a big yawn, louder than I intended. Tobias and Ax had woken me up in the middle of the night at my house to let me know that Zenguh returned. It was hard to go back to sleep.

“Am I boring you, Jake?” my history teacher asked.

“No ma’am,” I stammered, too tired to think of an excuse quickly on the spot.

She continued teaching, and I continued not listening, until the bell rang. I walked through the hallway to my locker. Cassie was there. She was smiling. I was not.

“Jake, you look tired,” she said. “Are you okay?”

In a hushed voice, I quickly summarized the events of the night before. Cassie was no longer smiling. 

“Well,” she said after a moment. “He doesn’t have the shard at least, so that helps.”

“I guess,” I answered, swapping out my textbooks in my locker. “But who knows where he’s been, what he’s learned, and which crazy aliens he’s acquired.”

Cassie was quiet, so I continued. The crowd of students passing through the halls helped disguise our conversation.

“He knows what Rachel looks like,” I reminded her. “We have to act fast. If he finds her, he could find the rest of us through her, and if that happens…” I let it hang; we both knew that would be game, set, and match.

“He can still backlog his old morphs, he just can’t absorb any new people at the moment,” Cassie said, thinking out loud. “Rachel must feel really defensive and stressed right now. Don’t you think?

“A bit, yeah,” I answered, shutting my locker door. “But this is a stressful situation for everyone.”

We walked to our next class, which we actually had together. Now I had to pretend to care about math.

“Another thing,” I added in a low voice. “Tobias saw him in only two morphs last night. One of them was that _kafit_ bird from Ax’s planet. But the other was something that Ax told me was a _Jubba-Jubba_ , a legend from the Hork-Bajir world. That means one of those is his current main body.”

We turned the corner toward the classroom, and Cassie spotted Rachel on the other side of the hallway. I looked at her, and our eyes locked. Something was wrong. Rachel was weaving her way through the crowd of other kids, seemingly untouched as usual. Yet someone else was following the path she created. 

Following _her_.

“Cassie,” I said, nudging her arm. “Who is that kid behind her?”

The kid was shorter than Rachel, with a hoodie drawn up covering the face. I thought it was a boy, but he was so covered in clothes I couldn’t tell. The distance between Cassie and I, and this mystery student and Rachel, was closing fast. Cassie and Rachel bumped shoulders as they passed, but she didn’t say a word or look back.

<Zenguh,> came Rachel’s voice in my head. Cassie and I looked at each other, but we didn’t noticeably react. We didn’t want him to know who we were. Bad enough that he knew who Rachel was. This was an attack. I didn’t know how Rachel was thought-speaking me as a human, but it was definitely her voice that I heard.

I pulled Cassie next to me, leaning casually against another set of lockers. My eyes followed Rachel down the hall…not in a weird way, though.

Suddenly, she stopped and spun around.

“Look,” she said suddenly, loudly enough for the two of us and many passing kids to overhear the conversation easily. “You asked me out, and I said ‘no’, okay? If you keep following me, you’re just being a creepy stalker!”

More kids stopped to witness the scene. Rachel pushed Zenguh, but this was not a place that Zenguh could react with a fight. A couple of other boys from one of our classes stepped between Rachel and Zenguh, who had fallen to the ground.

“Get out of here, weirdo,” one of them said threateningly to Zenguh. He climbed up off the floor and left the hallway in a hurry, leaving the building through the school entrance.

Rachel and I gave each other a knowing nod. Cassie and I headed to class.

* * *

I faked interest for the rest of the school day. It was pretty tough, because I really wasn’t interested in the slightest. Finally, it was over. Rachel, Cassie, and I took to the skies. We needed a coordinated effort, and the rest of our group. We were headed to the Hork-Bajir valley to meet Marco. In the meantime, I asked Rachel how she could thought-speak me as a human. I found out that her and Cassie had experimented a bit, and Rachel could essentially morph herself. I wasn’t even mad that they had withheld this information, I was impressed.

<That’s the kind of thinking we need,> I said positively. <Zenguh is acting outside of the box. To beat him, maybe we should too.>

Luckily, it was not hard to get the six of us assembled around the campfire, and we added Toby, Erek, and Eva to our little group. Even with our combined experiences, we had a hard time coming up with an offensive strategy. I decided at worst, we would play defense until we had a better plan. For the rest of the meeting, we filled each other in on everything we all knew about Zenguh. The big key was that Zenguh thought Tobias was dead. Much like the David scenario a long time ago, we could possibly use that to our advantage. 

A few hours later, around midnight, it was my turn to watch Rachel’s house, taking over for Marco. We didn’t know how much Zenguh knew about her, but since he found her at school, we couldn’t take any chances. 

<This could be a long couple of days,> Marco said as he flapped away in owl morph toward the Hork-Bajir hideout. <Waiting around is tough. My Hork-Bajir excuse for a bed misses me.>

I agreed, but it was still my turn for the stakeout. I sank my talons into a branch on the tree in Rachel’s front yard, watching for any movement. I was bracing for an all-out attack on her family, but hoped it wouldn’t happen. After a while, I noticed a red-tailed hawk flying toward the house, emerging from the dark. He flew right up to Rachel’s window, and tapped on the window with his beak. I knew Tobias and Rachel had a special thing going, so I stayed in the tree. I didn’t want to intrude. I watched her bedroom window open from the inside, and the hawk flew right in.


	30. Rachel

I jolted awake, hearing a noise in my bedroom. I looked around, unable to locate a source. The noise repeated, and it proved to be a tapping on my window. I looked through the glass to see the outline of a hawk. I walked over to the window and opened it.

“Come on in, Tobias,” I said. I love it when Tobias comes to visit me in the night, but the recent events made me suspect he was here to deliver some bad news. “Is everything okay?”

<Everything’s fine,> he replied, a bit stoically. <I’m stressed. You’re stressed. Do you want to go flying?>

I was hoping for something a bit more romantic, but it could have been a lot worse. I changed out of my pajamas, then changed out of my human form. The outlines of feathers appeared on my skin, I shrank down toward the floor, and my feet became tough and sharp. I was a bald eagle. I could have gone owl to be able to see better in the dark night, but I wanted to soar through the air with my boyfriend and look at the city lights from above.

We left through my window, and Jake called out to me.

<Have fun, you two!> he said. <But be careful.>

<Yes, _Dad._ We’ll be back soon,> I said. <Just going for a quick flight.>

We flew quietly for a while. Once we were soaring high above my neighborhood, he broke the silence.

<How are you feeling, Rachel?> he asked.

<I’m okay, I guess,> I responded. <Some guy followed me around today at school.>

<What did you do?> he asked. <Was he cute?>

<I told him to beat it! Of course!> I laughed. Then I continued, smugly. <I _happen_ to have a boyfriend.>

<Lucky guy,> he replied. I laughed again, and bumped into him playfully.

<No, we’re not there yet!> he said. 

Huh, that was weird.

<Not where yet?> I asked.

<Oh, nothing,> he said. <Sometimes it’s hard to keep straight if I’m thinking to myself or thought-speaking. I’ll come clean, I’ve got a surprise for you, and we’re not there yet. I’m getting tired, so I’m motivating myself.>

Okay…It sounded reasonable, but I didn’t remember any of us doing that before.

I replied, <It _is_ a lot harder flying at night, isn’t it? Not a lot of…what are they called? Where the warm air rises?>

<I’m not sure what they’re called,> he said. <Just ‘warm air pockets’, maybe?>

That’s when I knew something was wrong. Tobias would never pass up a chance to talk about thermals. I turned slightly, inconspicuously, veering toward the woods, near Ax’s scoop.

<Where are we going?> the hawk asked. Okay, I wasn’t as inconspicuous as I thought.

<Oh, just force of habit,> I said. <I always fly this way from my house for our team meetings.>

<Okay,> he said. <But then let’s go to the surprise.>

<Sure,> I said. I looked at him more closely. <Hey, Tobias. You’re looking buff again!>

<I’ve been working out lately,> he said. <Flying a lot. Do you like it?>

<Oh, yeah,> I said, gaining a little altitude. <You look great,> I quickly positioned myself over him, and grabbed his neck and waist with my talons.

<What are you doing?> he demanded.

<I’m ending this, Zenguh!> I yelled at him. I dug my talons in, and bit deep into his upper back. This was going to be embarrassing if I was wrong.

<How could you, Rachel?> he screamed. <It’s me, Tobias! I’m a _nothlit_! I can’t heal this!>

Oh, good. I was right. It was definitely Zenguh. I bit into one of his wings and felt the crunch of the bones inside. I did the same to the other one for good measure, but I had to contort my body and reach behind me to do it, and my grip loosened. Zenguh took that opportunity to thrash wildly, and he slipped free.

I watched the mangled hawk fall to the earth below me for a few seconds, then snapped to my senses and dove to follow. I wasn’t about to let him get away again. As I suspected he started to morph. His body lengthened and grew several more sets of wings. That must mean the _kafit_ is his outer layer. I reached out again to repeat my earlier maneuver, but I didn’t account for his extra mobility from his extra wings. He saw me coming, and flared his wings briefly, and I shot right past him. Now he was above me.

<I’m going to try your little trick, human,> he sneered. He grabbed me by my neck and waist. <The difference is, Rachel, I know you can’t morph into another bird to fix this.>

I felt the bones in my wings shatter, and the sound of Zenguh’s thought-speak laughter rang through my head. 

<Before I let you go, I have a secret,> he said, leaning his head down near mine. <Tobias is dead!>

And he dropped me. 

My wings were useless, and weren’t even slowing my fall. We were high, but not high enough to give me time to repair my wings. I plummeted toward the ground, growing more sure by the second that I was going to die. I could see that I was falling close to a meadow near Ax’s scoop. I clung to one desperate hope, and I screamed.

<Ax! Aaaaaaax! Help me! I’m falling!>

I fell faster and faster, and was trying to convince myself that I could hear the sound of hooves galloping, when I heard a voice.

<I’m coming, Rachel!> It was Jake! I saw a dark shape diving toward me through the air. I spread my wings as best I could to buy time. My mind and body were overwhelmed with pain, but I couldn’t stop trying. The shape got closer and closer. I could see that it was Jake’s peregrine falcon, and it was getting closer fast.

Jake reached out with his talons and grabbed my wings close to my body. The pain almost made me black out, even before he flared his wings. The thing about peregrine falcons, however, is that they aren’t known for gaining altitude quickly or carrying heavy loads. They’re more famous for being streamlined and falling quickly; useful for catching up to me, but sort of a liability after that. 

I could feel Jake slowing us down, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough. He was able to redirect me enough to throw me into the leaves of a tree, and I hoped it would slow me down enough to survive.

Jake continued to hold on as we rocketed into the tree. I lost track of my injuries as I collided with branch after branch, but when I finally lay on the rough forest floor, I could no longer feel my legs, and it was really hard to breathe. Jake didn’t look as rough as I felt, but if I saw him on the street, I wouldn’t even bother trying to rush him to Cassie’s wildlife rehabilitation barn.

<Rachel, are you alive?> Jake asked, barely able to turn his head to me.

<I think so,> I said. <But who knows for how long?>

<Could I really be so lucky?> Zenguh’s voice mocked us. <Do I get to scratch two more of the Andalite bandits…and friends, I guess? Off of my list?>

We would never be able to run away or morph into something useful fast enough to survive this.

<I love you, Rachel,> said Jake.

<I know,> I said. Going out on a Star Wars reference. Marco would be proud of that.


	31. Ax

I was enjoying a very nice evening. I had just finished my nightly rituals, and soon it would be my turn to watch Rachel’s bedroom window. Sometimes an Andalite can think best when left in solitude, with a fresh field of tasty grass, and cool night air. For all the incredible tastes that humans have created, there is something about the traditional aspect of eating in Andalite form that is comforting.

Unfortunately, I was interrupted.

<Ax! Aaaaaaax! Help me! I’m falling!> I heard Rachel yell in thought-speak. 

I was immediately on alert. Clearly, plans had changed. However, with thought-speak, unlike vocal communication, it can be very difficult to perceive the location of the speaker. That, combined with the black surroundings of the dense woods, made it difficult to find her.

Although, the screech of a _kafit_ bird ringing in the night is something that every Andalite knows very well. I took off in that direction as fast as my hooves could carry me.

I burst out of some dense brush and surveyed the chaotic scene in front of me.

A bald eagle and a peregrine falcon were badly mangled, lying next to each other on the dirt ground with broken twigs and branches surrounding them. Rachel, apparently, no longer needed to be caught. Hovering above them, and getting closer, was a _kafit_ bird, which I knew to be Zenguh. 

<Yeerk!> I called out, my body and tail stiff with anticipation of a fight.

Zenguh turned to me, his many wings flapping to keep in the air next to the broken tree.

<Yet another Andalite bandit!> Zenguh sneered. <Come to die with your friends? Perhaps you are the ‘Ax’ that this one was screaming for?>

I said nothing to him, but directed a private message to Prince Jake, the crumpled falcon on the ground.

<Prince Jake, do not move,> I directed. <Your falcon morph is no match for a _kafit_ bird.>

<Are you telling me what to do, Ax?> Jake asked. 

<Yes.>

There was anger in my voice, but not directed at Prince Jake. This Yeerk, this vile creature that had made a mockery of the Andalite morphing technology, had been on my home planet.

Seeming to sense my thoughts, Zenguh continued talking to me.

<Admiring my morph choice, Andalite?> Zenguh instigated, looking for a reaction. <This was my most recent acquisition, until the shard was stolen from me. How does it feel knowing that I can come and go to your precious home world whenever I choose?>

At this point, Zenguh had completely turned toward me. The only sound in the air was his wings and the echoing calls of insects in the surrounding trees, and he dove toward me.

THWACK! THWACK! THWACKTHWACKTHWACKTHWACK!

I was striking with my tail as fast as I could to block the onslaught of claw-tipped wings that had suddenly surrounded me. Zenguh bit and tore at me with surprising speed, considering the size of the bird morph he was using. Back home, the _kafit_ is a relatively peaceful bird, not particularly menacing, but with the many minds that Zenguh had, he attacked with a fierceness that seemed out of place with such a body.

THWACK!

<Ax, we can’t move, but we can’t demorph,> Prince Jake said. <He can’t know any more of us are human.>

<Well, you can’t,> Rachel quipped. <But I can. He already knows me.>

<No, Rachel,> Prince Jake demanded. <You’ll be too vulnerable mid-morph. Let’s trust Ax.>

 _Trust Ax_ , I thought. I was happy to have earned my place with the Animorphs after so many battles. I hoped I could make my prince proud, now.

<How’d you know to find us, Jake?> I heard Rachel ask, as I blocked another round of attacks from Zenguh.

<Tobias showed up just a few minutes after you left your window,> Jake said. <I can’t believe I let you leave. I should have seen it coming. Sorry I took so long. I saw Marco, and sent him to get Cassie.>

I ducked to avoid a clawed end of one of the _kafit_ ’s wings, but was not fast enough for the second swipe. I felt a sharp pain on the side of my face.

<Prince Jake,> I gasped. <I do not want to alarm you, but I may have a hard time holding off Zenguh by myself.>

<Speaking of Tobias, he should be here any moment,> Prince Jake said.

That’s when I saw movement fly over my head, and the shape collided with Zenguh’s many-winged body. 

<Yeeeeeee-hawwww!> Tobias yelled, as he brought the bird down in a tangle of wings, using his Hork-Bajir morph. <The calvary is here!> He had leapt out of a tree, directly onto Zenguh!

<There we go,> Prince Jake commented.

Tobias took a step back, aimed his elbow blade, and let loose a perfect slice through the air and into one of Zenguh’s wings, lopping it off entirely.

Zenguh roared both in thought-speak and out loud, causing the surrounding insects to go silent.

Tobias looked at me and said, <Hi, Ax. Need help?>

I was very happy to see my _shorm_ , my best friend.

<Another one?> Zenguh said, trying to hide the pain in his voice. <How many of you Andalite bandits are there? Shut up! Shut up! Just give me my shard back, already!>

He sounded like he wasn’t sure which of us to address, and his thought-speak was all over the place. Meanwhile, the combination of blades between Tobias and myself was enough to push Zenguh back, until he finally, angrily, took to the air. The spot where he was missing a wing was spouting green blood, but he had enough other wings to keep flying.

<Fine,> Zenguh said, suddenly calm. <I don’t need this. I don’t need you. And I don’t need the shard! You Andalite Bandits are too much trouble; I have other plans!> With that he turned around and began flapping away, his large wings propelling him quickly toward the night sky.

<Prince Jake, Rachel, demorph!> I said quickly. <He’s retreating.>

<Thanks, Ax, you saved our butts,> Prince Jake answered. <We can’t lose him again!>

<And Tobias! Hooray for Tobias!> Tobias added quietly.

<Marco and Cassie aren’t here, yet,> Rachel said. <What do we do?>

<Ax, Tobias, you guys are one morph away from being able to follow Zenguh,> Prince Jake said. <You’re the fastest option.>

Prince Jake thought a little bit more. It seemed difficult for him to thought-speak through his injuries. 

<On second thought, Tobias, hang back,> Prince Jake added. <I like him not knowing that you’re still alive. Ax, go! We’ll catch up somehow.>

<Yes, Prince Jake,> I said, already morphing to northern harrier before he spoke. Tobias walked over to Prince Jake and Rachel, protectively, and offered words of encouragement as they demorphed.

<Go, Ax,> Prince Jake said again.

I flew.


	32. Marco

<Yo, Marco!> I heard Jake thought-speak yell from a distance. <Tobias—the one at Rachel’s—need to follow—Cassie!>

It was hard to follow what he was saying. Thought-speak breaks up over long distances, and I was well on my way to the Hork-Bajir colony to get some shut-eye. Plans change. No sleep for me. I turned a sharp U-turn in the air and headed to Cassie’s house.

I tried thought-speak from outside her window. Didn’t work. She was probably too deep into a dream about me to hear it. So, I demorphed outside on the rooftop, carefully slid the window open, crept into her room, and morphed gorilla. Then I put my face inches from Cassie’s. Using my gorilla mouth, I figured I could perform one human word, at least.

“Boo.”

Cassie’s eyes snapped open. She stopped herself from screaming, which is good because I didn’t really think ahead on the backup plan if Cassie’s parents had heard a sound like that coming from their daughter’s bedroom. Close one. Worth it. With everything being so stressful lately, sometimes you just need to have a laugh.

Cassie let me have it, though, as we morphed to great-horned owls. She was so mad, but she cooled down quickly as we hurried into the sky to find the rest of the group.

<Do you know if they’re okay?!> Cassie asked me for the fifth time.

<I don’t,> I answered. <I could barely make out what Jake was saying. Something about Tobias and Rachel. I don’t know.>

<Shouldn’t we stop by Rachel’s house then?> Cassie pressed.

Good point. So, we did. I wasn’t surprised to see that the window was open and Rachel wasn’t there. We flew toward the woods where Ax lived. Maybe he would know what was going on.

<Jake?> I kept testing my thought-speak to see if we were close. <Jake?>

No answer. He was too far away or he was no longer in morph.

As if in response to my call, I heard Tobias’s voice in my head: <Marco! Are you with Cassie? Jake says he can hear you.>

<Yeah, buddy, the cavalry has arrived!> I said, relieved to have some contact.

<Hey, that was my line.>

<What?>

<Nothing,> he answered, opening the discussion to include Cassie. <We’re really close to Ax’s scoop.>

<What’s the plan?> Cassie asked. We were flapping really hard to make good time. I could nearly hear how out of breath she was through her thought-speak.

<Well, Ax took off to follow Zenguh,> Tobias explained. <He’s really far ahead, but Jake didn’t want him to get out of thought-speak range, so Rachel is about a mile behind him. Jake is getting ready to take off a mile behind Rachel, and then it’ll be my turn.>

<Pretty good idea. It’s like an annoying game of telephone,> I mused. <Couldn’t we just get actual phones?>

<Sure, Marco,> Tobias said. <You go back to that cell phone store. Also, fly with a phone. Good luck with that.>

<Tobias?>

<Yeah?>

<You’ve gotten more sarcastic as I’ve known you.>

<I’ve noticed too, man.>

Just then I spotted him chilling underneath a tree. He was in Hork-Bajir morph and Jake was almost fully owl, like us. I could just make out Rachel way in the distance, in bald eagle morph. Oh, that girl.

Cassie and I landed and demorphed.

<Catch up, guys!> was all Jake said before he took off. Now we had a chain of Zenguh, Ax, Rachel, and Jake in the air, without any real idea where anyone was headed.

Tobias filled me and Cassie in on the fight that had just happened. Another near-death experience for some of our team. I hated that I was getting used to that. 

Tobias didn’t have an owl morph for some reason, so Cassie and I acted as his eyes through the dark sky, trailing behind Jake quite a bit, yet close enough to maintain thought-speak. 

<Any idea where we are headed?> I called ahead.

<No, and Rachel is saying she’s lost track of Ax at the moment,> Jake said, somewhat calmly. He was hiding the panic in his voice, but I’ve known the kid way too long.

<How are you doing, buddy?> I asked Jake privately as we flew through the air.

<We need to end this,> he answered, simply, not really responding to my question.

<Visser One could take some advice from this guy,> I tried to joke. Actually, the last thing we needed was the leader of the Yeerk invasion to be competent, let alone brilliant. The Yeerk hierarchy had quite a few flaws. No wonder a rogue Yeerk was so effective.

<Let’s hope they don’t become best friends,> Jake said. We continued flying. Rachel reported to Jake that she still had no sights on Ax. I wasn’t too worried, though. Ax is pretty good at taking care of himself.

Tobias and Cassie were behind me, and followed me through the air. I trailed behind Jake, who eventually landed on top of a high-rise apartment building. Rachel was there too. I took that as a sign that there was a new development. Once all of us had landed (minus the missing Andalite), we demorphed to try and make a plan. 

Tobias remained in hawk form, but I saw him going in and out of his true hawk and the beefier hawk he had told me he recently acquired. He was really dedicated to extending the bird life, I guess. I suppose I would be too.

“All we have to do is find two aliens somewhere around this part of town,” I said. “How hard can it be?”

“Well, the Yeerks are pretty good at hiding thousands of aliens,” Rachel said.

<True,> Tobias interjected. <But when has Ax ever been good at keeping a low profile?”

It was a good point. Even in human form, we never had to worry about the two hour time limit with him because our plans were always cut short from some commotion caused in public, usually by his sense of taste.

We peered over the edge of the apartment building roof, as if we might just see Ax and Zenguh hanging out directly below us in the parking lot. 

Then we leaned back and looked at each other, hoping a plan would formulate as we thought of how to find Ax. He had to be close.

“Oh, duh,” Cassie said, slapping her own forehead. “Tobias, can you thought-speak out to him?”

“I was doing that, Cassie!” Rachel exclaimed. “But he suddenly went silent!”

<Ax?> Tobias tried, including us. <Ax, you around?>

<Warehouse,> came a distant response. <Something significant about the human letters T, G, I, and F.>

“TGIF?” I asked the group, and laughed. “Is he at the TGI Friday’s warehouse building over there?”

I pointed in the distance. 

Before anyone could respond, there was a strange popping noise in the air, like when your ears pop during an airplane flight. The sound was followed by sizzling, growing louder until it was accompanied by an orange-and-purple light shining from the very building I was pointing at. A white lightning bolt erupted out of the top of the building, and the ground rumbled beneath us. Nice timing.

<Ax!> Tobias yelled.

“Oh, this seems good,” I said.


	33. Ax

<You are all fools,> Zenguh taunted me as he flapped ahead of me in the air. <You all possess a great power, and you waste it on saving a race that typically ruins themselves.>

<Zenguh,> I pleaded. <You need to stop this. Your actions are simply deplorable.>

<Ah, Ax the Andalite,> Zenguh continued. <How I would love to acquire another Andalite body, this time the brother of the famous Prince Elfangor. Even to bring you into my ever-expanding mind would be hugely beneficial.>

<There is only one Abomination, and there will only be one Abomination,> I muttered indignantly, referring to Visser One. I tried to ignore how much he knew about my family.

More and more lights were appearing below us as we left the rural area and headed into town.

<Ah, yes,> Zenguh said. <Andalite pride. Speaking of pride, mine is still hurt that I could not retrieve my morphing shard from you and your friends. But no matter, I have an alternative nearly complete.>

I didn’t know what to say to that. Did Zenguh have another form of morphing technology? Impossible! Although, who knew what he had done and what technical knowledge he had obtained while this vile Yeerk was on my home planet.

<An alternative?> I asked.

<Of course!> he replied. <Until the _nothlit_ revealed that you had regained the shard, I thought I would never see it again. After getting a taste of this power, I could never stop! So, I’ve developed something new. And in the meantime, I attacked you for being in my way. I’m brilliant, you know.>

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

<Yes, I know they are all following us!> Zenguh suddenly exclaimed.

My friends had mentioned that Zenguh had been prone to sudden outbursts since his return to Earth. I had a theory I could test.

<Ax, you doing okay?> Rachel asked from some distance behind me.

<Yes, Rachel,> I answered. <Thank you for checking. I’m still following Zenguh.>

I turned my attention back to the _kafit_ that flew ahead of me. He seemed to be headed in a predetermined direction, otherwise surely he would pursue aerial combat. He clearly had the morph advantage. My harrier eyes were having a difficult time seeing details in the darkness, even with the increasing quantity of lights from below.

<Zenguh,> I addressed him. <How many minds do you have within your own?>

<Several,> Zenguh sneered. <So many that I have lost count. I should be approaching five hundred.>

I nearly dropped out of the sky. _Five hundred_. That was an extraordinary number of captives inside Zenguh’s mind. I felt sicker than when I came down with the _yamphut_ virus.

<I expect every one of them can hear me,> I said, trying to regain my composure. <I also expect that the more minds you have, the more distracting they can become.>

<Shut up!> Zenguh shouted, and I saw him dip in the air before recovering and continuing on. 

<A friend of mine was a Controller once,> I continued, happy that I was taunting him. <He said that he had nothing to do except bother the Yeerk in his brain. It was very distracting, and eventually helped to free him.>

<Enough!> Zenguh spun around in midair, and nailed my harrier body with his claws. I dropped through the sky, and Zenguh was in a nosedive above me. However, I had time to flip my bird body over and straighten out just before coming into contact with the sidewalk below. After landing gently, I laid on the cement, tired from the constant flying and the most recent maneuver. 

I watched Zenguh zoom past me and into a building with a red neon sign that said “TGI Friday’s”. As I was suddenly on the ground, I was farther from my friends in the air than I expected. I sent out a test thought-speak, but heard no response. Our distance must have been too great.

I did not understand the significance of TGI Friday’s. I had some knowledge of human timekeeping, but to my knowledge, buildings and days of the week were unrelated. I would have to ask Marco. Luckily, the street was abandoned at this time of night. After some time, I demorphed to Andalite and followed Zenguh into the building. I tested another thought-speak out into the night air, and again heard no response. I hoped my friends would find me soon. I did not know if I could take Zenguh in one-on-one combat, but I could at least determine “what he was up to,” as Prince Jake would say.

Many of the objects within the building had been pushed to one side in a haphazard pile. That was not the focus of the room, however. I hid beneath the bottom of a glass window that separated the room I was in from the room where I could see Zenguh. He was almost finished morphing from _kafit_ into the form of some poor human captive we had yet to witness.

I hid for what seemed like hours, watching Zenguh’s every movement.

<Ax?> I eventually heard Tobias thought-speak. The group must be near! <Ax, you around?>

I responded to Tobias with my location, and continued to watch Zenguh. He was standing with his back to me, tinkering with many, many tools and instruments that were strung about on a few tables. Electricity flashed from various items, and tubes with bright colors glowed brightly in the dim light. Humming and zapping sounds filled the air. Farther back against the wall, I saw a few people chained up. The setup was very similar to his headquarters at the ham shop during our last major encounter. 

“I did it,” Zenguh said out loud to no one in particular. “I think I finally did it! Much sooner than I expected! Ha-HA! Morphing shard or not, I will still have the power!”

I quietly walked through a door frame to enter the main room where Zenguh was experimenting. I did not know what he thought he had accomplished, but it seemed prudent to find out.

As I stepped closer, trying desperately to keep my hooves from echoing in the large room, I watched Zenguh suddenly grab two thick cords, one with each hand. And at that moment, a bright bolt of white shot through Zenguh’s body, and a resulting vibration shook me to my knees and very nearly knocked me unconscious. Through the multi-colored haze that suddenly filled the room, I woozily kept my stalk eyes on Zenguh. The rest of my body was concealed behind a large table that had fallen over in front of me. The light was receding and I could make out Zenguh’s silhouette through the glare. 

He looked...different somehow. I could not tell if it was the impact of my head hitting the pavement, or something about the energy from his experiment, but he looked...blurry and indistinct. Like an image from a primitive human video camera that was not quite in focus. I did not have to dwell on it, for Zenguh sprinted to one of the walls of the building. In the process, he became, incredibly, the _Jubba-Jubba_ morph that Tobias had described as attacking him in the night. I had heard of the creature from Andalite folktales and children’s stories, but seeing one in person was another matter entirely He punched through the wall with an enormous, three-fingered hand, and was gone into the night.


	34. Cassie

The lightning bolt erupted from the building and knocked us off our feet. I kicked myself for getting out of morph. I was stuck on this roof until I could get into a morph with some wings. The world became brighter as my eyes changed to those of an owl, but I didn’t care. I was in a hurry. I had to see if Ax was okay. 

<Let’s go!> I shouted at my stunned teammates as soon as I was able to thought-speak. 

I threw myself off the roof, confident that I would finish morphing before I hit the ground. My wings finished forming, and I used the tremendous speed from my freefall to swoop toward the TGI Friday’s building. I saw Tobias flying just ahead of me. He must have left the roof at the same time I had. We flew toward a broken window with an orange glow and smoke coming from inside. 

I flew inside, and was momentarily blinded and disoriented as my eyes adjusted from the dark night sky to the flames that were spreading across the room. I landed hard and tumbled on the floor that appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Once my vision returned, I looked around through the haze. On the far side of the room, I saw a giant beast charge past an enormous hunk of destroyed machinery, and crash through the wall and into the night air. I flapped to follow it when my ears registered the sound of dozens of screaming voices. I was terrified and fell to the ground again. 

<Cassie!> Tobias yelled. <He’s got people chained to the wall, like before! I’ll get them free! You go after Zenguh! Don’t let him escape!>

Tobias began the grotesque change from red-tailed hawk to Hork-Bajir. The orange glow of the growing flames didn’t make it any prettier.

I knew that the beast had to be Zenguh, and since he was gone, I didn’t have to pretend to be an Andalite. I righted myself, demorphed, and climbed to my feet. There was debris and broken glass everywhere, and I was barefoot. Not ideal. I began to morph again, and as my feet became the durable padded feet of a wolf, I noticed Ax, partially hidden behind an overturned table. 

<Ax!> I yelled. 

<Cassie!> he answered. <I will be okay, but I will need a few moments to recover before I will be of any use. Go!>

I groaned with my difficult decision, but I finished my morph and took off, leaving him behind.

<Cassie, wait!> Ax again. <The explosion has changed him somehow. Be careful, he could have some new tricks.>

I thanked Ax, and began running toward the hole in the wall. The fire sprinklers kicked on, and musty-smelling stale water began falling from the ceiling.

I ran out into the night air. Even if there hadn’t been a trail of destruction, the unearthly smell would have led me right to him. 

The beast was big and strong enough that he seemed to prefer charging through things rather than going around them. Parked cars had been shoved away from the sides of the streets, and corners of buildings had bricks missing where a giant shoulder had crashed past them. I picked up speed. The others should have no problem following the trail when they caught up to me.

I rounded a corner to see the beast breathing heavily and watching a man unlock and get into his pickup truck, oblivious of the world around him as he left for his night shift. He started the engine, checked his mirrors, and screamed. Zenguh punched a massive hand or foot or whatever through the driver’s window.

I expected him to rip the man out of the car, but the massive beast flowed into the car, like a thick, blurry cloud. Ax was right, this was different. Way different. I ran up to a car across the street, and looked into the truck’s driver-side window. It was empty. This wasn’t making sense.

The empty truck’s engine roared, tires spinning, and peeled out down the street. I ran after it as fast as my legs would carry me. It was definitely faster than I was, but it took a screeching left turn, and I jumped into the bed of the truck as it passed in front of me. The inside of the truck’s tailgate slammed into me, but I was in.

Wolf feet are great for running and climbing in the woods, but they weren’t designed to hold on to a smooth truck bed. The truck took a sharp right, and I was thrown against the left wall of the bed. My lower half tumbled over the edge, and I barely managed to hold on using the entirety of my two front legs.

I wasn’t going to be able to hold on much longer, and the truck must have been going 60 miles an hour down the tightly packed city streets. I had no choice but to morph back to human so I could climb back in. My human hands formed, and it was suddenly much easier to hold on, though it still wasn’t a situation I’d like to be in. I pulled myself up and was halfway into the truck bed when the truck hit a bump. 

I flew into the air, half wolf and half human, probably the worst of both worlds. I landed on everything but my feet, and rolled and rolled, completely unable to make sense of my swirling surroundings. I slammed into a big blue US Postal Service mailbox. The world stopped spinning, and I saw the truck speeding into the distance. Then I heard the police sirens. 

I’m embarrassed to admit that my first thought was that I was going to jail for damaging federal property, even though the mailbox looked fine. I saw a few police cars flying down the street after the truck. 

I finished demorphing back to human, and it healed most of my injuries. The truck and the police cars turned a corner, and I heard a crash. I ran down the street after them. I heard more crashing sounds and screams as I approached the corner. I had heard enough screams tonight to last me a lifetime. Whatever form Zenguh was in around the corner, I knew I needed some muscle.

I focused on the change and felt myself swell, growing many times my normal size. I fell forward onto my hands, which were now hooves. My face elongated, and dense, sharp horns grew from my head. Gigantic muscles tensed, and a wave of immense power washed over me as the changes finished. I was a two thousand pound invincible killing machine, known in parts of Africa as “The Black Death”. I was an African Cape Buffalo. 

I charged around the corner ready to turn Zenguh into pulp, but the scene that greeted me made me falter. There was broken glass and blood everywhere. I caught sight of the arms and legs of officers pinned under smoking, overturned police cars, with red and blue lights still flashing. I would never get this scene out of my memory.

Shock turned to fear, and then turned to anger. I started hyperventilating and literally saw red. He had done all of this without a second’s hesitation. There was no saving Zenguh, and there was no saving the people inside of him. We were going to have to kill him to end this. There could be no other way.

A thick, liquid gurgling sound caught my attention, and a police car in front of me shifted. The same police car then melted, with the same sound, into the same horrible beast I had seen before. Its enormous mouth spread into a wicked grin.

<They told me that you were following me,> he growled. <And they told me that you are no Andalite.>

<They?> I asked. 

<I suppose it’s no secret that there are many voices in my head, the minds of those that I have absorbed,> he said, stepping closer. <We all share the same senses, but while I was busy driving here, they saw and felt you become human in the back of my truck. And while some of those within me are still resistant, some have begun to accept their fate, and are working with me. I hope you’ll be one of the cooperative ones.>

His teeth glistened in the flashing red and blue light as one of his massive feet took another step toward me.


	35. Tobias

I followed Cassie into the open window of the TGI Friday’s building, toward the orange glow. I heard her crash into the ground and tumble. Amateur. I had flown into more windows over my years as a hawk than I’d like to admit, so I approached with the caution that the situation deserved.

The scene inside was grim. The air was thick with smoke, and flames were spreading around the room. I saw people chained to the wall, and the same _Jubba-Jubba_ that had eaten my rival hawk crashed through a wall. I told Cassie to follow Zenguh, and I set to work freeing the prisoners.

<You okay, Ax-man?> I called.

<I will be in two of your minutes,> he answered.

<Ax, they’re not…> Marco began, flying in alongside Jake. <Ow!>

As Ax got back up to his feet, the others joined us, landing in a heap like Cassie had. Maybe I should give them some flying lessons when this is all over. I told them that Cassie was following Zenguh as I freed the people chained to the wall. The flames began to subside as the water from the sprinklers pooled onto the floor.

<It sounds like he’s in the _Jubba-Jubba_ morph that Ax told us about,> said Jake. <We’d better get into our battle morphs.>

In a couple of minutes, I was in a room with a tiger, a gorilla, a grizzly bear, and an Andalite, and an amazingly loud alarm siren. I stayed hawk for air support. We went through the hole in the wall, and walked out onto the scene of a disaster movie. Cars and rubble were scattered around the street, and there were utility vans and their workers busily trying to clean it up.

“Andalite!” yelled a man stepping out of a glass repair van.

We paused, bracing for a fight.

Another worker barred his hand in front of the man, and said to him, “No! Visser One says we have to clean this up before sunrise, or people are going to get suspicious and it’s going to be a lot harder for us. Let them go.”

We advanced a few wary steps, but no one made moves to stop us, so we hurried at top speed along the trail of destruction. The city was quiet, except for the occasional shout of “Andalite!”

A few blocks later, we stopped seeing any more debris or wrecked cars. The trail had gone cold. There were some tire marks, but they didn’t seem related to this. 

<Tobias, do you see anything up there?> Jake asked.

<Nothing yet,> I said, and flew higher. The sound traveled better above the buildings, and I began to be able to see over the shorter buildings. The sun wouldn’t be up for a few hours, and the city was still fairly quiet, but I heard some police sirens start up, and figured that was as good a guess as any. 

<Go north!> I yelled to the group on the ground. They looked around, puzzled. I sighed internally, and yelled again. <The way Marco is facing!>

They started moving. I flew off ahead to check it out. Soon, the red and blue flashing lights stopped moving. I heard crashes and screams as I landed on the edge of a roof above them. Down at street level, there were flipped police cars, broken glass, and something huge moving through the smoke. An officer aimed his gun at whatever it was, and fired twice. The huge thing pounced on him, but instead of knocking him over, the thing flowed into him, and was gone. The policeman turned toward an upside down police car and flowed into it, then the car liquified and became the _Jubba-Jubba_. 

My emotionless hawk mouth fell open at what I was seeing. _He’s in another league entirely. We’re definitely going to die. Or worse._

My eyes followed its gaze and saw that it was approaching some kind of buffalo. It had to be Cassie. The buffalo looked strong, but not strong enough to win this fight alone. 

I dove from the rooftop and repeated to myself: _Don’t tseer. Don’t tseer._

I extended my talons, and raked one of the Jubba-Jubba’s eyes. It never saw me coming, and it wouldn’t be able to see me go. The huge beast reeled back and let out a roar. Cassie took the opening and charged. I landed behind a burning car, and morphed quickly to Hork-Bajir. I leapt over the car and back into the action. 

Cassie had done quite a bit with the opening I had given her, and Zenguh was bleeding a lot. I jumped on him from his blind side, and attacked like the walking food-processor that my Hork-Bajir body was. My arm and leg blades slashed, and my sharp feet tore into him. 

The beast roared again, and I heard another animal sound. I looked up in time to see Cassie being thrown into the wall of a building and fall to the ground with a heavy thud. The _Jubba-Jubba’s_ giant head turned toward me, and I think it smiled.

My blades were plunged deep into the beast, which made it hard for me to move when the wall of flesh began to roll over and onto me. I was pinned, and it was excruciating trying to breathe. 

<It’s you! The _nothlit…_ and you’re somehow able to morph now? Forgive my rudeness, I forgot your name when I ate you,> said Zenguh, enjoying my helplessness. <How is it that you are alive?>

I thought frantically for something witty to say, but the best I could come up with was, <I guess you missed?>

<An interesting theory,> he said, as if giving it some real thought. <I will have to not miss this time.>

He rolled off of me, and I gasped for air. I couldn’t feel my legs, and I couldn’t tell if they were broken or just really asleep. I pushed myself away as best I could, using my arms, but it was no use. He grabbed me effortlessly with his giant three-fingered hand that, according to Toby’s legends, was powerful enough to rip a Hork-Bajir in half, and…well, he ripped a Hork-Bajir in half.

It was a small blessing that I still couldn’t feel half of my body, but the shock of seeing it ripped in two was still a lot to take in. 

He was standing on his hind legs, half of me in each hand. He moved my legs toward his mouth, full of sharp glistening teeth, then he made an “Urgh!” sound.

I looked down to see a huge gash in his stomach, and Ax shaking blood from his tail blade.

<The cavalry’s here! Again!> said Marco, landing a punch from his cinder block sized fist into the beast’s knee, and getting a crunching sound in return.

Zenguh dropped me, and I had never been so happy to fall twenty feet onto pavement. I fell in a heap. Well, two heaps. I reached desperately for my legs, and pulled them tight to my chest, just in case it made a difference, and demorphed. As if I didn’t have enough nightmares already.

Zenguh liquified again, shrank, and became the tall, red-haired man named Dave.

“Andalite Bandits!” he called out, anger in his voice. “And humans, and hawks too! Holy mackerel, you just don’t stop, do you?” 

Marco shifted in his stance, uncertainly. 

<No?> he yelled back.

“What do you guys want?” he yelled. “I’m not even after your morphing shard anymore!” 

“Are you kidding?” yelled Jake. “Stop trapping people inside you!”

“I’m not going to _stop_!” he said, like it was a crazy thing to ask. “Everyone and everything I add to myself gives me memories, makes me smarter, gives me new options! Imagine what I’ll be able to accomplish when I’ve got the strength of a whole planet inside me! Look, I can do _this_ now!”

He melted into one of the police cars that he had absorbed earlier, peeled rubber, and roared down the road, laughing in thought-speak. We chased him for about a block and it was clear we would never catch him. That is, until Marco’s gaze landed upon a FedEx delivery truck, its door wide open. The driver was probably making a delivery to the apartment building where it was parked.

If you’ve never heard a five hundred pound silverback gorilla make a giddy squealing noise before, it’s…interesting.

<Oh please oh please oh please…> Marco said as he ran over to it. <Yes! The keys are in it! Get in!>

<I don’t know about this, Marco…> said Jake. 

<Your driving record as an Animorph is terrible,> I said bluntly.

<It’s fine, man! I’ve been playing a LOT of Grand Theft Auto,> Marco said, the excitement oozing from his voice.

<It’s true,> said Ax. <He gets a lot of stars!>

<Fine,> Jake sighed. <But only because we have no other choice.>

The gorilla slid into the front seat, and the rest of the team crammed into the back with all the boxes. I had just had a near death experience, and was in no hurry to have another one, so I flew high into the air and helped navigate once again. 

The FedEx truck had no hope of catching the police car, but Marco did his best. Zenguh merged onto the highway, lights on and siren blaring for no reason I could think of besides his own amusement. 

There must not be any merging in Grand Theft Auto, because Marco caught air on the on-ramp, and sent off a bright flash of sparks as the guardrail nudged him into a lane. We were lucky there weren’t very many people out at this time of night, only a few cars on the road and a couple of helicopters flying around.

I heard Jake’s voice call out, <Everyone but Marco, morph cockroaches! It’s our best chance of surviving this ride!>

I guided the increasingly mangled delivery truck up the highway, away from downtown, and to a lumber mill that we hadn’t been to since the visser had tried to cut down the whole forest to find our Andalite scoops. We had thwarted him with termites and grape juice. Those were simpler times.

Marco’s truck was still a couple of minutes away when Zenguh drove into the lumber mill’s parking lot. I saw him swerve and drive straight at a large, cube-shaped object. As I got nearer, I recognized it as his spaceship from the ham shop. At the last minute, rather than crashing into it, he liquified again and splashed into the ship, which then became the birdwatcher man. How was he doing this? 

He walked into the mill entrance, and waited. It had to be a trap, but what could we do?


	36. Marco

The annoying thing about thought-speak is that I couldn’t block out the screaming in my head.

<I hate your driving!>

<AHHHH! That’s not a lane!>

<I always beat you at racing games! This is why!>

That last one was Jake, and they were all freaking out because I was driving. Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’ve had rough experiences in the past, but this was different!

I yanked the steering wheel to haul down an offramp. I turned left at the next red light. There was a line of trash cans on the side of the road.

BAM BAM BAM BAMBAMBAMBAM!

Okay, so it wasn’t that different.

It was still pretty cool though. Driving fast through the city at night, following a giant shape-shifting alien monster. I didn’t know how Zenguh was doing what he was doing, and I didn’t know how fast a FedEx truck could go, but life is full of surprises, I guess.

We were leaving the city lights and heading out into the rural part of town. I was briefly worried that Zenguh was heading in the direction of Cassie’s farm, but quickly realized he was headed in a different direction. In the dark, it was hard to make out the building that was ahead in the shadows. Wait, it kind of looked familiar…

<Hey guys, do you recognize that building up there?> I asked.

<Marco, we’re cockroaches in the dark,> Rachel said sarcastically. <Eyesight isn’t our superpower right now.>

<Oh sure,> I shot back. <But you could see enough to complain about my driving.>

<It’s the lumber mill,> Tobias interrupted, from up ahead. <Remember our wonderful termite adventure? He’s stopped inside that building.>

<What should we do?> Ax pondered aloud.

We pulled up to the mill, and I turned the car off. We were very far from the city, now. The eerie silence of the woods was a jolt, considering the wild drive. Well, “wild” by their standards. I thought it was fine. The group and I demorphed and we sat thinking. We were crammed together in the FedEx truck, listening to the occasional sounds that Zenguh was making inside, which suddenly included a low humming sound.

The humming sound got louder. Hold on...

<Guys, helicopter, coming in fast behind you!> Tobias warned from above.

<Battle morphs, now!> Jake ordered. He didn’t have to tell me twice.

I went back to my gorilla morph, and Rachel went elephant. Cassie started to go polar bear, and then changed her mind, morphing to wolf instead. Jake became his usual tiger, and Tobias went Hork-Bajir. Ax remained an Andalite. We were ready, I just didn’t know what we were ready for.

We ran out to the edge of the woods, where we could still see the opening that included the lumber mill. The helicopter landed outside. Two Hork-Bajir and a Taxxon crept out, very tentatively. In fact, once they heard Zenguh roaring and banging around inside the mill, they turned around and went back to the helicopter out of fear.

Can I go home, too?

<Go!> came a commanding voice from the chopper. Ah, our good buddy Visser One.

Startled, the three aliens turned back and cautiously approached the door to the mill. The commotion inside had grown louder. I turned to Jake.

<What do you think he’s doing in there?> I asked.

Before Jake could answer, all sounds from within the building stopped, and the silence of the night continued, with only the chirping of insects and the helicopter blades winding down.

And then the door exploded outward. From out of the wreckage came the _Jubba-Jubba_ , only different. He lumbered forward, out of the mill, and I could feel the ground slightly shake beneath me. The creature’s mouth was disproportionately larger than it should have been, and part of his feet had the remains of a semi-truck’s wheels. Oh, and instead of fists it had giant circular saws that were buzzing like crazy. One of the Hork-Bajir was immediately eliminated. It wasn’t pretty.

<Ah, the almighty Visser One!> Zenguh crowed, while his morph growled with delight. <Now you pay attention to me? Here’s something to pay attention to: I can absorb Controllers now. How about two minds for the price of one, the Yeerk and the host?!>

He lurched toward the helicopter.

<Plan?> Rachel asked, looking at the rest of us.

Jake sat down suddenly. <No,> he said, looking shell-shocked. <Guys, I really don’t have a plan. This is insane.>

<As Marco has pointed out before,> Tobias remarked. <THIS is the insane part? Nothing before this?>

<I agree,> I said. <I’m too overwhelmed to even complain about this level of craziness.>

<Okay then, I have a plan,> Rachel said, quite calmly in my opinion. Oh, right, here it comes. 

<Let’s do it! Ahhhh!>

And she rushed out of the brush, trumpeting as she stampeded toward the scene.

<Well, when you put it that way,> Cassie said.

<Your girlfriend is crazy, man,> I said to Tobias, and then I rushed out too. The six of us charged toward Zenguh, the Hork-Bajir, the Taxxon, and the helicopter. Immediately, Visser One stepped out of the aircraft once he saw us. The chopper’s blades were slowing down, but not enough. Zenguh threw the Taxxon into the rotor blades and its guts went, well, everywhere.

<Andalite bandits,> Visser One said, sounding resigned. <I request your assistance with this Yeerk. He has caused us too much trouble, and I expect you have your own issues with him as well.>

The beast roared. Visser One turned his eye stalks to look at Zenguh, but kept his main eyes on Jake. The remaining Hork-Bajir was slicing and running around Zenguh, keeping him slightly distracted but mainly looking to stay alive.

<I request a momentary truce,> the visser added.

The Hork-Bajir was decapitated. It was just one wrong move but that was all it took.

<Visser, I do not know if the seven of us is enough to take him down,> Jake said coolly, trying to sound like an Andalite leader. Zenguh had now turned his attention back to our little meeting.

<Who said it was just us?> Visser One said, smiling with his eyes the way Andalites do.

Just then, a bunch of cars, motorcycles, and pickup trucks roared into view, approaching from the same dirt road we had driven in on. 

<What do humans say?> Visser One asked, probably rhetorically. <”The cavalry has arrived?”>

<Man,> I muttered to my friends. <Now everyone is saying it. Lame.>

Gunshots rang through the air. Dracon beams sizzled toward Zenguh. Controllers yelled as they ran toward the creature. Even Visser One was joining the fray: I guess he was taking Zenguh’s defeat as a personal mission. The Yeerks charged, and we charged. It felt like this was going to end, tonight.


	37. Rachel

I charged across the parking lot on a collision course with a multi-ton killing machine. Lucky for me, that was a good description of me too. Elephants may not normally be killing machines, but when I pilot one, it’s one of the deadlier things on this planet. 

Zenguh was shuffling through DNA (and whatever the mechanical equivalent was), picking the deadliest parts to create a bizarre horror show of a body. Ordinarily, it would be suicide to try to take him on one-on-one, but I’ve got a reputation to uphold, as well as a deal with Crayak. My chance to take him down by myself wouldn’t last, but I had a nice head start on the tidal wave of Taxxons, Hork-Bajir, and human-Controllers rushing toward him, not to mention my team. 

I got within striking distance of him, and stutter-stepped my feet to get the timing just right. Zenguh raised one of his saw-blade-tipped arms in preparation to cut me into pieces, but I landed one of my front feet onto one of his, and pushed off of it as I slammed my head into his midsection. I heard his foot shatter, and felt his leg dislocate as his body was pushed away from where I had his foot pinned to the ground. 

I knew he would swing the saw blade down onto me, but my hit must have been enough to throw him off a bit, and it cut only a shallow, but mostly harmless slice around my back. He fell to the ground, and I slowed myself and turned to face him again. I saw his blood on my tusks, and let loose with a loud trumpet. He climbed back to his feet, and I charged again. Dracon beams seared the air and burned Zenguh’s flesh. Hopefully, they’d stop long enough for me to hit him again without getting shot myself. As I ran at him, I saw another pair of saw-blade arms grow from his sides. 

Uh-oh. 

There was no stopping my momentum, so I doubled down and gave it my all. I hit Zenguh in whatever passed for one of his shoulders, and drove my tusks deep into him. Then I felt his other three arms slice deep into me. The sudden change in my breathing told me that one of the saw blades had hit one of my lungs. That was bad. Gotta retreat and heal. 

The Dracon fire resumed, and the first wave of the Hork-Bajir-Controllers arrived and leaped onto him. I used the chaos to stumble away as best I could. 

The mill. Its door had been blown open. That would give me enough privacy to demorph, and I wouldn’t even have to open the door.

I heard my teammates’ voices.

<Rachel!> Jake probably.

<Rachel’s got racing stripes!> it sounded like something Marco would say.

<Rachel, run! The Taxxons!>

Fear washed over me just before I felt the first of those disgusting, uncontrollable monsters scurry onto me, powerless against its own hunger. Of course, Zenguh was probably healing himself too quickly to even bleed very much. I, on the other hand, was covered in blood.

There were probably three of them on me by the time I got into the mill building. My vision was getting dark, and my body was starting to go numb, like when your leg falls asleep. I had lost a lot of blood, and it was getting really hard to breathe. It felt like it should have been easier to breathe, with the extra hole in my side, but I guess that’s not how lung punctures work. 

<They’re off you!> Jake said. I guess I had been so out of it that I hadn’t noticed Jake get here or start shredding the Taxxons.

I heard Marco yelling a bunch of nonsense about sports drinks or something, but I couldn’t make myself focus on that, even if I had been healthy. I had to demorph right now, or I was definitely going to die. 

I collapsed in the entrance room of the mill. My body shrunk, my wounds closed up, and my skin got less elephant-y. Soon, I was a teenage human girl, surrounded by foul-smelling Taxxon guts. I could see and breathe again, and even if the nearby sights and smells weren’t anything I wanted to take in, at least I had the option. 

I looked out the broken mill entrance door, to the dimly lit parking lot battlefield, and saw a lot of hurt Controllers. I felt both good and bad about that. 

I also saw the half-biological, half-mechanical Zenguh throw off the most recent wave of Controllers that had attacked him. Then he saw me. He was even bigger now, and with thunderous steps, pounded his way toward me. He probably thought I’d be an easy kill now that I was human again. I suddenly felt very vulnerable. I scrambled to my feet on the Taxxon-guts-slick floor, and looked around for an exit. Before I could even move, Zenguh opened his enormous mouth, full of sharp and deadly teeth, and dove toward me.

The monstrous jagged mouth was only a few feet from me, when I was hit from the side and thrown across the room. My back hit the wall as Zenguh’s jaws closed around the tiger, who was in the spot I had been only a moment before.

<Jake!> I screamed.

Everything stopped. I would have thought it was my mind breaking after seeing my cousin being eaten, but everything was quiet too. Time had really stopped, which could only mean one thing.

My surroundings faded to an empty white void, and I heard a slow clap from behind me. I turned to see the Drode clapping, and Crayak filling the horizon behind him.

“You did it, Rachel,” Crayak boomed, “You finally did it. You’ve killed your cousin, as I’ve hoped for years that you would.”

“No!” I screamed, my grief and fear swirling inside me. “I didn’t kill him!”

“Killed him, caused him to be killed, it’s all the same to me,” Crayak said. “Jake is gone, and it never would have happened if you hadn’t rushed in by yourself, without your team.”

My face fell into my hands as I wrestled internally with my cousin dying and what my role in it had been. Still, the clapping continued.

“Oh, that reminds me,” said Crayak, a smirk in his voice. “Say hello to the Drode. I have asked him here as I lack the necessary appendages for an ironic slow clap.”

He turned to look at the Drode. “Thank you, that will do,” he said, and the Drode stopped clapping and vanished from sight.

Now, all that remained was Crayak and myself. I still had nothing to say.

“Cheer up, little one,” he boomed at me. “All of your problems are solved! You’re the leader of your little gang, now that Jake is out of the way!”

Crayak laughed a horrible laugh, and then added: “I really appreciate that, by the way. You’re basically my apprentice at this point. I’ll tell the Drode that you’re gunning for his spot.”

I screamed in anger, louder than I had ever screamed before, but it still didn’t block out Crayak’s voice.

“And since you’ve fulfilled your end of our agreement, it is time for your reward.”

“I never wanted this!” I shouted. “I never wanted to help you! I only agreed that if you brought Zenguh back to Earth, I’d kill him!”

Crayak’s voice was calm and slow as he said, “Then imagine how easy this will be for you now.”

I felt like I had been hit by lightning. I was strong. My body was flooded by so much power that I felt like I would explode. 

The empty white void disappeared around me, and I found myself screaming at Zenguh, whose momentum was carrying his giant body over the area where Jake had been. I looked down at my hands. They shifted immediately into strong, muscular hands, with retractable metal claws. I was Super-Rachel, and Zenguh was about to die horribly.


	38. Marco

If this was a videogame, it would be a boss fight. Unfortunately, it was real life.

My life.

And at this moment in my life, I was punching a Hork-Bajir-Controller in the face with a gorilla fist the size of a frozen chicken. He went flying. Apparently, the memo that we were all on the same team didn’t sit well with some Yeerks. This one had attacked me less than five minutes after Visser One’s supposed “truce.”

I turned to the next one. 

<Tobias! Come here!> I called out, even though I couldn’t see him. A Hork-Bajir dropped down right next to me. He was bleeding a bit from his side. Instinctively, I raised my arm for protection.

<Relax, it’s me. What’s up?> Tobias asked, casually swinging at a Taxxon that had slithered up behind and raised its upper third to attack. More alien guts spilled out onto the floor. There was a lot of that. 

I seriously wondered if the Yeerks just brought Taxxons to make the battlefield inconveniently slippery.

<I’ve got an idea, Tobias,> I said, and I told him my attack plan. It was ridiculous, but fun.

Minutes later, I was charging toward Zenguh’s monstrous form as a gorilla, with Tobias in Hork-Bajir morph riding piggy-back on my shoulders. A saw blade was swung toward Tobias’ head, and he ducked with his snake-like head, then parried the next spinning saw with his own arm blade. I grabbed Tobias’ legs and spun in a circle, hurling Tobias at Zenguh’s head. Tobias’ wrist blade sank deep into Zenguh’s face, just beneath one of his eyes. My momentum carried me into Zenguh’s midsection, where I sucker punched him as hard as I could.

<Woo-hoo!> I yelled, feeling a bit crazy with adrenaline.

Zenguh was down, but I knew that wouldn’t last. In fact, how were we planning on finishing this? The battle around us was the most chaotic one I could remember, and I’ve been in a lot of battles.

I saw Rachel run toward the sawmill and duck inside the new, messy doorway that Zenguh had created. The cuts she took were brutal, but I knew Rachel would be okay. Xena the Warrior Princess always finds a way.

I yelled a joke about racing stripes, but didn’t think she heard me.

Zenguh attacked a group of Hork-Bajir-Controllers. When I say attacked, it was very strange to watch. He melted into a shimmering blob and zipped right over to the group of aliens before morphing back to his hideous _Jubba-Jubba_ -mechanical hybrid body and...well...disposing of them.

<Guys, did you see that?> I called out to the rest of my group. <He just, like, melted as a form of transportation.>

<I saw that!> Cassie answered. <Like that one drink commercial. I forgot the name, what was it?>

I looked over and saw her knock a gun out of the hands of a human-Controller with a swipe of her large paw.

<It’s been a while,> Tobias said. <Was it Kool-Aid?>

<No, Kool-Aid had the pitcher guy jumping through a wall. But I guess he did that too, earlier. Wait, I’ve got it! Capri Sun!> I answered, suddenly remembering, and suddenly noticing the Taxxon climbing on my back. I took care of it.

<That’s right,> I heard Cassie again. <You know, I always liked fruit punch.>

<Is “fruit punch” a type of attack, but with fruit?> Ax wondered from his side of the fight.

<No, Ax-Man,> Tobias said. <It’s—hold on.> Tobias sliced through three Taxxons in a row, immediately removing them as a threat. 

<It’s just a sugary flavor,> he continued, as if nothing happened. The boy had really gotten brutal since I had met him so long ago.

<Sugar?> Ax repeated. <I must try this!>

I could imagine Ax asking Jake for permission to leave the fight to try some fruit punch. Where was Jake anyway?

I loped toward the mill to see if anyone needed help. Visser One may have said there was a temporary alliance, but a lot of Yeerks were still attacking us anyway. Why not take down Zenguh and the Andalite Bandits at the same time? It made sense to me. It also made for a wild battleground. 

Suddenly, a lot happened very quickly.

I glimpsed the orange-and-black flash of Jake, and briefly saw Rachel’s golden hair.

Zenguh rumbled into view, diving toward one of them. I couldn’t tell which one.

Visser One was running toward the mill, but was still too far away to see anything important.

I saw Rachel get shoved away, a tiger suddenly in her place. 

And Zenguh’s open mouth closed over him.

Jake was gone.

I promptly sat down. Everything suddenly seemed...not important. I looked around as the battle raged around me. Tobias was one-on-one with a Blue Band Hork-Bajir. Their blades clanged through the night as they blocked blow after blow from each other. I looked back at Zenguh. He had changed, somehow. He seemed to have grown into a new hybrid creature, one with many, many appendages. I guess they looked like tentacles. I didn’t notice the details, couldn’t focus. I blandly watched Ax and Visser One both charge Zenguh from behind, Andalite tails slashing over and over into the backside of his new alien form, fighting side by side in a visual I never thought I’d see in a million years. Cassie was far away, running toward the mill as well, snapping her jaws at any Controllers that got in her way. My ears were ringing, so I couldn’t hear her snarls. Her face was covered in several different shades of blood.

All movement appeared to be in slow motion. Jake was gone. Jake was gone. What would we do now?

I looked down at my gorilla hands, scratched and bloodied. _Jake was gone_.

I heard a thumping sound, and looked up.

A creature, even bigger than Zenguh’s new form, had appeared, towering over him menacingly. The creature looked vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place where I recognized it from. Zenguh suddenly looked less intimidating by comparison.

And this new creature, this giant...thing, made of gears and metal and muscle and who knows what else, it bent down and grabbed Zenguh, grinning. 

And then it began to completely rip Zenguh apart.


	39. Jake

The last thing I saw after I pushed Rachel was Zenguh’s giant mouth, full of teeth, screaming toward me, and then all was black.

It was hard to tell how much time passed, but eventually the darkness faded and I realized that I was in what looked like my old basketball gym, from back when I first tried out for the team, before the war. I was also human again. I remembered how important it was for me to make the basketball team, since Tom was such a star player.

A lot had changed. 

The gym was bright, to the point that everything had a whitish glow to it. Walking through the locker room doors was a figure I knew quite well at this point.

“Hello, Ellimist,” I said. “Am I dead?”

I was surprised at how calm I sounded. 

The Ellimist approached me, almost thoughtfully, as if wondering how to tell me the news. When he was a few feet away, he finally responded.

“Oh Jake. Are you dead? No,” he said. “You’re not dead. You are not meant to die here, and certainly not now.”

Oh, wow, those were some pretty awful words of encouragement. Tobias would have rolled his eyes.

“Ellimist, I’m so tired of this war,” I said. It was not a complaint, just a statement of fact.

“I know,” the Ellimist answered. “Many of those thrust into the toughest of times wish they could avoid it in some way. But when these things happen, we must push through.”

“I have to go back, don’t I?”

“Yes.”

“How can I survive this?”

“Jake, surely being swallowed by a monster isn’t enough to stop an Animorph?”

I blinked, and suddenly I was again in the dark, back in tiger morph, pushed and squeezed on all sides by dampness. I was back in the battle. With a burst of energy, I pulled back one of my huge paws as much as possible in the limited space, punching and clawing at the muscles enclosed around me. Surprisingly, it worked fairly easily, and a giant hole was suddenly open for me to fall out through, collapsing on the floor.

<Jake?!> I heard Rachel’s voice yelling. <Jake! You’re alive? I...I’m sorry.>

<It’s fine,> I muttered, looking around, eyesight refocusing. <Rachel...where’s Zenguh?>

No answer.

<Rachel?>

“I, um, I kind of went crazy and ripped him apart when I saw him eat you.”

Oh. That’s why it was easy to get out. I was startled by the sudden lack of thought-speech, and how close her voice was to my ear. 

I looked at Rachel, and saw her morphing, once again. She was shaking. I also saw, around us, bits of pieces of Zenguh scattered throughout the sawmill. It was gross.

<Rachel, are you okay? This is...well, a lot to handle.>

<I have to finish this,> she said, brown fur sprouting all over her body. <I have to finish this without _his_ help.>

 _Help? Whose help?_ I wondered. I looked over, saw Zenguh. Wait. I looked back behind me at the husk of a body I had exploded out from. That was Zenguh. So, what was this new thing I saw hunched over, but very much alive? This new being looked a lot like him, but with a shimmering green hue. There was a web of green lines spread out over his grotesque, hybrid form of teeth, claws, muscle, machine, and tentacles. I couldn’t really describe his form beyond that, and I didn’t know how he was over _there_ when Zenguh was so clearly dead over _here_.

But I watched as Rachel, in full grizzly morph, stood over Zenguh’s new form, breathing heavily. Zenguh looked like he was struggling, barely keeping his head up. She reared back and attacked in one final swipe, claws tearing deep into his head. There was no doubt that she had utterly destroyed him. Zenguh’s massive body collapsed in a heap, and it was suddenly over.

<We did it,> Rachel said, sounding exhausted. <We really did it.>

I climbed shakily to my feet. Controllers poured into the building, surrounding us, but not interested in us.

“Destroy every piece of evidence!” various Controllers shouted to each other, ignoring us completely. “Visser One said there can be no trace of this traitor!”

We snuck out of the building, limping and hobbling, and Controllers began setting the entire building ablaze. The flames rose into the sky and, at the same time, the sun peeked over the mountains.

Rachel and I regrouped with Marco, Cassie, Tobias, and Ax in the woods beyond the sawmill. 

After the initial shock of seeing me alive, I realized that everyone was completely worn out. We flew to our various homes, mostly in silence. In the end, it was just Rachel and I once more. I figured I should fly her home; I did not provide a good watch the last time. It felt weird to know that Zenguh was finished.

Once we were alone, Rachel filled me in on what I had missed, and she let me know about her side drama with Crayak.

After I had been eaten by Zenguh, Crayak granted Rachel his own version of superpowers. When Visser One had seen this so-called “Super-Rachel”, he abandoned the fight, leaving his followers leaderless. Using these powers, she had gone, as Marco would say, “nuts” and really took it to Zenguh. She literally tore him apart, but he kept healing and rebuilding himself. At last, she removed his head, but she watched in horror as he morphed from just a head to an entire new body.

I had lost a leg before as a tiger, in battle. I was still able to change to human, whole and complete. Zenguh must have applied the same process. As long as he was conscious enough to change, he could, no matter how much of his body was missing.

She said that his new body looked similar, but had a weird, green glow; the same glow I witnessed. He was also worn out, just like Rachel, but she began the process of ripping him apart yet again. But once Crayak saw I was still alive after all, he immediately took back Rachel’s new powers, leaving Rachel back in an exposed human form.

Rachel was able to remorph to grizzly and destroy Zenguh’s brain with one last attack before he could recompose himself and continue to heal.

<Jake,> she said as we flapped through the night. <I thought I wanted more power, I thought I _needed_ more power. I realized the six of us, we can do it, we can really win this war, together.>

<We all have our weak moments, and our strong moments,> I reassured her. <I hope we all make it through. Together, just like you said.>

<I’ll follow you to the end Jake,> Rachel said, her tone quite serious. <I know I complain about not being in charge, or everyone being too indecisive. I know I struggle with morality. But I’m telling you right now, I’ll follow you to the end.>

I hoped it would never come to that.

After Rachel was safely in her room, I flew to my own house. The sun had risen on a new day, a symbol of our resolution with Zenguh.

I saw Tom on the phone through his bedroom window, no doubt hearing the updates on Zenguh’s demise. There was no rest for me when the enemy lived within my home. 

As I laid in my bed, unable to sleep despite being more tired than I had been in months, I wondered how this would all play out. Did Ellimist and Crayak know how the war would end? Could they foresee Zenguh’s rise and fall? Would I get my brother back? Would all the Animorphs make it to the end in one piece? Could we survive?

How would this end?


	40. Tobias

It was late Saturday morning. Ax and I had watched some cartoons at his scoop earlier, and we were enjoying a day of relaxation. Zenguh was defeated and the Yeerks’ ridiculous swim meet had been cancelled, so there was nothing to do but enjoy life. 

We were soaring high in the air, on our way to meet up with our friends. I looked down and thought, _That’s still here because of us._ I had meant the city, but it could probably apply to the whole planet. 

The sun was shining, and flying was easy. I flew through a low cloud, just because I could. And the thermals! Have I mentioned how great thermals are? 

We passed Cassie’s house, and I chuckled to myself, thinking about the broken Helmacron ship we had buried under a tree by the barn. It was just one more thing we wouldn’t have to worry about anymore. It really felt like life was going our way.

I could see our destination, the mall, in the distance. It grew larger as we approached, and we flew over the playground where we had fought Zenguh. 

<They really did a good job cleaning up that park,> I called to Ax.

<It looks very pristine,> he commented. <From what I heard, it was a mess when you left.>

That made me think. I said to Ax, <Knowing what we know now, about all the DNA swirling around in our blood, we should probably be more careful about cleaning up.>

<We should,> he agreed. <If humans kept any sort of health records, the Yeerks could probably use them to track us.>

<We do have that, Ax,> I told him.

<Oh dear,> he said, gravely.

We landed near the mall, near some bushes that hid a duffel bag with our clothes.

Jake, Rachel, Marco, and Cassie were already in the food court. We exchanged hugs, and went to go pick out lunch. Normally we don’t like to meet together, in case anyone is watching. I think we were too relieved and tired to care this time.

“Can you handle this, Ax?” I asked.

“I will do my best to control myself. Elf,” he said, his mouth already watering.

“Good, because I’m really looking forward to seeing you use chopsticks,” I said, as we walked toward the Panda Express.

We got our food, and met back at the table.

Cassie was the first to speak.

“It’s such a relief to be done!” she exclaimed.

“Definitely,” Jake agreed. “This morning, Tom invited me and my friends, that’s you guys, to a barbeque that The Sharing is throwing. I think the Yeerks are really glad Zenguh is gone, too.”

We all laughed. We were obviously not going to go to a Yeerk picnic, but hearing that even the Yeerks were happy really cemented that we had won, and that life could go back to normal. Our normal, at least. 

Rachel spoke next. “It’s a shame we couldn’t have acquired Zenguh.”

We all looked at her like she was crazy.

“I mean, I’ve learned my lesson about morphing myself and all,” she said. “The anxiety of possibly getting stuck in a morph of myself and missing out on the war was too stressful. But Zenguh’s been all over the galaxy. I’m sure he’s got some morphs that would be useful against the Yeerks.”

She had a point. 

“But who knows what his real form even was at the end?” I asked. “Plus, the changes he made to himself could have made things unpredictable.”

“Even so,” said Cassie. “I would have loved to know what morph he was using to make his skin glow that beautiful green at the end.”

Leave it to Cassie to be interested in the anatomy of other creatures, even when they were trying to kill us.

I noticed Ax get a weird look on his face, like he was deep in thought and unaccustomed to using his mouth in his facial expressions.

“Ax, you look like you’ve got something on your mind,” I said.

“That green glow,” said Ax. “I had not realized it until just now, but I recognize it.”

“Cool,” I said, getting ready for one of Ax’s space stories. “What’s it from?”

“I think I have mentioned them before,” he said, his expression showing more fear by the second. “The Hawjabran.”

Seeing that the name had meant nothing to any of us, he continued.

“Interesting,” he said. “None of you are shocked. Let me explain. In the academy, we studied an incident where an Andalite courier ship had come across a Hawjabran ship, floating in space. The life support had been disabled, and thousands of Hawjabran floated inside, frozen.”

“What does it mean, Ax?” asked Marco, impatiently. 

Ax took another breath, and said, “The ship had been attacked by Yeerks, trying to turn the occupants into Controllers, but the Yeerks gave up. Are you sure I haven’t mentioned this before?”

“Out with it! Why?” I asked.

“Because the Hawjabran have decentralized nervous systems,” said Ax. “They don’t have just one single brain that the Yeerks can control. Their ‘brains’ are spread out over their whole bodies.”

I understood, and it wasn’t long before I could see the lights go on in the others’ expressions.

Rachel ran the fingers of both of her hands through her hair, and let her head settle in her hands. She looked just short of panic.

“So, when I morphed grizzly, and destroyed his head, and he fell down dead…” she started. “He could have been faking it?”

“A small chance,” Ax said.

“It’s okay,” said Jake. “The Yeerks torched it all, right? They burned everything that was left of him, and the entire sawmill.”

Cassie said what we were all thinking.

“What if they missed a piece?”


	41. Epilogue: Ellimist

Crayak and I sat back, silent for a few ensuing moments. Now that Zenguh was dealt with, our most recent galactic game had come to an end, quite suddenly. We could feel it. Yet the Yeerk invasion of Earth continued around us. Of course, we knew a bit more about the situation than did the Animorphs. 

We were under a large tree at a park on Earth. Music was playing from a radio at a picnic table nearby. I was in my “elvish form”, as Marco likes to say, and Crayak was also in a human-like form, possibly for his first time. A chess game was set up on the picnic table, and we were positioned to engage in a bit of competition while we discussed the results of the Zenguh predicament. 

“It’s over, then,” I said, moving a white pawn forward.

“And they think that Zenguh Two-Zero-Zero-One is dead,” Crayak responded, eyeing his pieces. He pushed one of his own pawns forward a space. 

“Instead, he may become our problem,” I sighed, looking up at my long-time opponent. “This may be the one situation where collaboration between us is key.”

“Yes, these humans constantly disappoint me,” he answered. “We should have made an exception to our rules, so that we could crush him ourselves when he was weak.”

“They did their best, and in a sense, the Animorphs did win their fight — at least today,” I said.

“How so?”

“He has left Earth again, after all,” I responded. “In that walk-in cooler of a ship. Well, he left Earth _as_ the ship, I suppose.”

“But he had left Earth before,” Crayak said, adjusting his eyepatch. “Remember? I got those ridiculous Helmacrons to interfere.”

I hated Crayak’s dismissive attitude toward life in the universe, but as far as the Helmacrons were concerned…well…

A new song started on the radio. Light guitar rang in the breeze. I could faintly make out the words.

_Looks like we made it…_

I turned my attention back to the game and moved another piece, while Crayak resumed his explanation.

“I could have gone either way, of course,” he said. “Either the Animorphs were going to kill Zenguh, or he was going to create a lot of new games for us across the galaxy. Killing him ourselves is a price I would not mind paying for this new entertainment. He is in our battlefield now.” His bishop was now free. He advanced it into the open center of the board.

“It was fun watching the Animorphs struggle to defeat him,” Crayak added.

I stared at him intently. Even after all these years, I still feel there is more to learn about my rival each and every game. 

“I noticed that you offered considerable help to Rachel, and yet Jake had numerous near-death experiences,” I observed.

_We mighta took the long way..._

“Look, Ellimist, Jake being dead would be a tremendous asset to my side of our larger game,” Crayak continued, smiling faintly. “How could I resist? Plus, Rachel is so close to crossing ‘the line’ every day, as that fool Cassie would say, that a stiff breeze could have pushed her over.”

“Clearly that’s not the case,” I retorted. “Or you would not have felt the need to supply her with superpowers. Besides, is that not interfering with the rules of our game?”

“And when you showed Tobias the construction site, was that not interfering?” he countered. “And the Chee you brought in to help with the encryption, so they could find Zenguh’s location?”

“Those benefited you, as well,” I pointed out. “Zenguh was an issue for us both, which is why we bent the rules to get assistance.”

“Granting Rachel her powers was also beneficial for us both,” he retorted. “Zenguh’s strength was growing exponentially, and may have eventually surpassed ours.” He moved his knight forward three spaces.

_But we knew we’d get there someday…_

“And your interest in Rachel was not meant to forward your agenda with Jake?” I asked him, a bit tauntingly.

“You knew I couldn’t refuse such an opportunity to, shall we say, remove Jake,” he shot back.

I quickly moved my pawn backward in anticipation of his next move.

“It’s a shame then that after all the effort, Zenguh escaped into the galaxy,” I said sadly. “The Yeerk assault on Earth will continue, unnoticed by the humans.” 

“He was almost the one to ruin our little war,” said Crayak eagerly.

“He was, but many things must still happen before that game comes to an end.” I said, my voice heavy.

_They said, "I bet they'll never make it"..._

“Perhaps Rachel will have another opportunity to take him down in the future,” Crayak said knowingly. “Even if not in the same way she envisioned. She can take him down in one form or another. After all, she made me a promise.”

I had seen the same strands of time as Crayak. I knew exactly what he was talking about. We continued our chess game in silence for a few moments. Most of Crayak’s pieces were now on my side of the board.

_We're still together, still going strong..._

“What should we call this new foe?” I asked after some time had gone by, confident that we would come across Zenguh again somewhere in the galaxy. My king piece was laying on its side, but so was his.

“Well, since there are so many minds sharing one body,” he mused, flipping his rook to the opposite corner. “What about ‘Better Ellimist’?”

I wasn’t a fan of that suggestion. 

_You’re still the one..._

“You said he was the one to very nearly ruin the Yeerk war,” I reminded him, pensively. “And he is the one reason we could work together.”

Crayak looked at me.

“Why not call him The One?”

We both looked down at the chess board.

“Did I win?” I asked.

“Ellimist, we don’t even know how to play chess,” he said angrily; and with that, we left Earth for the Animorphs to continue their defense.


End file.
